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Archive 50 | ← | Archive 53 | Archive 54 | Archive 55 | Archive 56 | Archive 57 | → | Archive 60 |
When are they going to be implemented? Constructive criticism ( talk) 13:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I spoke to staff (specifically Erik Moeller) when I was in SF for the board meeting, and I got a very promising update at that time. Rather than risk saying something inaccurate, I'll show Erik this post and ask him to make an update here. In the meantime, the labs server is likely the best place to go for the absolute latest information.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 13:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
There is a collaboration proposal at OpenNASA that suggests that NASA collaborate with Wikimedia project including Wikipedia.
There is also a NASA collaboration task force at the strategy wiki as well as a NASApedia proposal.
Would you support a collaboration between NASA and Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and the Commons? Smallman12q ( talk) 00:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Hi, Jimmy. Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/RfC went live today. While designed by original proposer Uncle G as a 'Reverse Rfa' (see Wikipedia:'Community de-adminship' - The original Uncle G proposal for reference), the current proposal has undergone revision and is no longer termed as such.
I, and I believe much of the community at large, would welcome your thoughts. Thanks, Jusdafax 01:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Did wikipedia have the monobook skin when it started? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.230.86 ( talk) 18:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
I am having a very serious problem with a group of editors, including some arbitrators and admins, attacking me with blatant lies and distortion in an effort to ban me. Please can you help Jimbo? I admit I'm not perfect, but I have always edited in good faith and I don't believe that people should be able to make blatant distortions about what I have and haven't said. This is a civility and BLP violation, even if I am anonymous for now. Also, we shouldn't allow anyone to try to censor people they disagree with by hounding, harassing, intimidating and abusing processes with misrepresentations to get rid of them. ChildofMidnight ( talk) 04:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Oh dear, more flame bait, but I could not help a wry smile at this:
Did Larry have a previous account or did he "co-found" Wikipedia six months after it started? Guy ( Help!) 22:21, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Dear Jimbo,
Do you regard Wikipedia as vulnerable to astroturfing by pharmaceutical companies? Perhaps I haven't looked in the right places, but I've seen surprisingly little if any on-wiki discussion about this very real danger, and how to recognize and prevent it. When I saw an Arbitration in progress about pages related to Transcendental Meditation, I voiced this concern publicly for the first time, commenting as an outside editor.
No matter how the TM arbitration is resolved, I hope that you and others who oversee Wikipedia consider these dangers very, very, very seriously over the long run, and find ways to protect Wikipedia against damage. It would be sad if Wikipedia was infiltrated and effectively colonized by this industry, which Marcia Angell, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, calls an "eight-hundred pound gorilla that… is used to doing pretty much what it wants to do", and that in highly sophisticated ways "uses its immense wealth and power to co-opt nearly every institution that might stand in its way", p3,x.
Here is a link to the arbitration page evidence I provided (and here is a diff). Thank you for all you've done for Wikipedia. It is still young, and I do hope it endures in as much of its glory as possible. Precautionary 00:24, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Hi. Very sorry to disturb.
There is a Welsh film that I enjoy. In fact, I helped set up the IMDb page for the film back in 1999 when I was a major IMDb researcher, one of their "Top 200". The film is called Hedd Wyn.
Yesterday I noticed 2 errors on the Welsh WP page for the (Welsh language) film. I presumed this to be the result of (Welsh nationalist) vandalism. I corrected the errors, bringing the page into line with both the IMDb and English WP.
The Welsh sys admin has now blocked my editing privileges for 1 year, and restored both errors to the WP page.
Is that a reasonable outcome?
Sincerely, Varlaam ( talk) 21:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Hello Mr Wales,
I am writing this to say a little bit of my appreciation to you for founding and setting this wonderful project (perhaps one of the most influentual projects of the 21st century). Wikipedia has helped me a lot with my school work and it has also expanded my knowledge of the world around me. I can't really imagine (or has ever imagined), what this world would be like with Wikipedia. I am a newbie myself with editing, even though I have using the site for so long. I hope that Wikipedia will grow to become the largest website-in term of capacity-in the world (I don't think it's not far off now :)). All in all, I just want to express to you my appreciation of the work you have done, just nearly a decade ago, and I hope that Wikipedians and the website itself, will strive for the better in the near future, and for decades to come.
Thank you very much, Mr Wales.
Sp33dyphil 08:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello, Jimbo Wales! I have nominated you for bureaucratship. It would be nice if you would accept the nomination and answer the questions on the nomination page. Thank you and happy editing. NerdyScienceDude :) ( ✉ click to talk • my edits • sign) 06:19, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I've been away a few days in a place with limited Internet access (London! haha!) Actually my computer died and I'm just now coming back online.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 11:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd like us to conduct a poll from now until Saturday, regarding whether we should ask the Foundation to simply turn on flagged revs in the form that the Germans use it, until such time as they finish the version we've reached consensus on here, but which is constantly delayed.
User_talk:Jimbo Wales/poll - please just leave it here rather than turning it into a formal RfC or request - this is just a poll to gauge how we feel about it.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 11:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I am sorry - am I missing something? Casliber ( talk · contribs) 20:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I was participating in your poll and came across a line that scared me – someone claimed that the foundation (1) has no idea how much longer it will take and (2) has no intention of setting a deadline for itself. So I pose this question to you: Instead of being one of the people that continues to complain about how flagged revisions aren't here yet, why not instead see what initiative I can take to resolve the problem. There's two sides to this: On the one hand, to my understanding, everything Wikimedia is open source and thus the current (partial) implementation is as well, so I theoretically should be able to just go in and start hacking away on my own local copy to my heart's content, then propose patches and get them integrated. On the other hand, I assume WMF is taking this as a high priority and thus (a) may not want the additional help due to the increased load of reviewing changes and potential for security issues, and (b) may wish to avoid conflicts as they have more time than the prospective volunteers. So I pose this question to you: Is there any way the community can help out with getting this finalized? Perhaps a team of volunteers to contribute to the source and get us on our way finally? Thanks for any insight, Shirik ( Questions or Comments?) 21:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
“ | adding manpower to a late software project makes it later | ” |
It's been true for decades. Sorry. Jack Merridew 23:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
If anyone still doubts that something should be done about BLPs ASAP, you should see the latest piece at On Wikipedia. Turns out they put a defamatory, hoax BLP through DYK yesterday. It was on the main page for six hours, during half of which it accused the subject of murder. HH Nobody ( talk) 02:29, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar | ||
For founding Wikipedia. That really is a brilliant idea. NerdyScienceDude :) ( ✉ click to talk • my edits • sign) 04:46, 3 March 2010 (UTC) |
I have to once again start discussion about User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 53#Contradicting informations between English and Czech Wikipedia. Jimbo asked for a discussion here and I asked of Czech editors to come here to join discussion. I want to stress the key point that discussion should dealt only with this content/editorial issues to resolve it, since those are big problem. What can be done when English and Czech Wikipedia contains contradicting informations and nobody listens. The English Wikipedia states that homosexuality was remeved from the lists of disorders on the ground of recognizing the scientific evidence. This fact supported by the most reliable sources available to the topic. The Czech Wikipedia states that homosexuality was removed solely because of the political reasons. This statement is supported by one unfounded opinion of the author of scripts. Yes, you read right! It is absurd, isn't it? I believe this is a serious problem, but nobody has listened for several months and the article is blocked to prevent correct that. Nothing can be done. The Wikipedia policies about reliable sources and exceptional claims have been ignored there for many months. Is there any chance to set right propaganda of ultraconservative editors and inactive admins there? I believe CS Wikipedia should present facts in similar fashion as the EN Wikipedia, since it is not Conservapedia. Moreover, the Czech Wikipedia editors violates undue weight and reliable sources policies by presenting fringe sources even if those was explicitly prohibited to use in the English Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2009_August_8#Contradicting_informations_between_en_and_cs_Wikipedia didn't help to solve the issue. All mechanism including Czech Arbitrary Comitee has failed so far. These issues hurt Wikipedia project. Who is responsible and who failed here? -- Destinero ( talk) 07:52, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Just a short comment from me, as I was an ArbCom member (my term ended at the beginning of this year). The story had two sides for the arbitration committee:
The arbitration case is not closed yet, so the decisions are not valid yet. With this explanation I hope that You, Mr. Wales, will understand that Czech Wikipedia ArbCom did not fail in this case. I do not want to argue with any of my colleagues' preceding comments, but You can asume that I do not agree with several of them (eg. for the topic title that "nobody care of it there" - as I really had to care of it a lot in the ArbCom member post). With regards, -- Okino ( talk) 04:51, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
“ | The reason was not to include medical, as homosexulalita man brings many difficulties that it is medically caused by handicap, but rather a political sexual desire to eliminate alleged discrimination against homosexuals society justifies by pointing to their "sense of normality as well." [14 ] | ” |
“ | Is Homosexuality a Mental Illness or Emotional Problem?
No. Psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals agree that homosexuality is not an illness, a mental disorder, or an emotional problem. More than 35 years of objective, well-designed scientific research has shown that homosexuality, in and itself, is not associated with mental disorders or emotional or social problems. Homosexuality was once thought to be a mental illness because mental health professionals and society had biased information. In the past, the studies of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people involved only those in therapy, thus biasing the resulting conclusions. When researchers examined data about such people who were not in therapy, the idea that homosexuality was a mental illness was quickly found to be untrue. ... |
” |
Phoenix, sorry, but when you say A, you should say B as well to keep other informed right. Crazy seems to be, that Destinero did not searched for consensus to unblock the article (in time when he was not blocked - and Destinero was blocked 190 of last 365 days = (52%) according to his blocking record, what is unbeliveable), that's why the article is still locked. Last month there is some remarkable move, when Destinero proposed text to Brzek source, but finally colapsed by Destineros personal attacks and trolling, when he is blocked again. Until Destinero is blocked, it is possible that author of the Brzek source (what I'm not) will agree with Destinero on proposed formulation and article will be unlocked. Most strange is, that in one discussion Destinero is proposing text to Brzek source to unlock the article, on the other discussion in the same time he is writing, the source should be removed, so I have serious doubts about what Destinero really wants. Consider the size of Czech Wikipedia community and consider that very few editors was working on the article. Now, probably, nobody wants to continue until problem is solved, otherwise can easily happen, that they will loose their work, so I personally feel Destineros activity and behavior style as the main obstacle to unlock mentioned article.-- DeeMusil ( talk) 13:04, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
This is NOT REDFLAG. In arbitrary with Destinero, I did serve with dozens of sources, which says the same. Claim it is about redflag is simply false. Actually, I always said, that such information should be formulated neutrally, A says B about C, so in that case no red flag is even possible. Additionaly, CZ wikipedia rules differs a bit (are not such complex), so there is no red flag at all on CZW. Futhermore, Destinero completely IGNOREs recommendation Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial#Moral_and_political_points_of_view which exist on both EN and CZ wikipedia. // Destinero do you want to move this discussion into the article (where some of your claims was already widely discussed, for example EN->CZ rules usage) or you want to bother Jimbo Wales with whole your culture war agenda again? -- DeeMusil ( talk) 16:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC) Actually, when speaking about en rules, Destineros case is in WP:CONFLICT of interests, as he is promoting his own group on both CZ and EN Wikipedia, but he did not follow the recommendations there.-- DeeMusil ( talk) 07:35, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Destinero, you did mishmash 3 different things together, so please dont do it. Lets make difference between article/fact, discussion/opinion and personal blog/thoughts or belives.
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive600#User Destinero - personal attack Thank you. -- Destinero ( talk) 20:19, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
MR. Wales A few months ago I spoke with you about the need for reform in our "ruling system" . The last day is a clear example of how corupt our ARBCOM process has become. User:Brews ohare was blocked under the thinnest and flimsy excuse he violated his topic ban[ [10]]. This was done without a clearcut consesus and was initiated by someone who review for less then ten minutes. Brews then filed a unblock request, this went unreviewed (declined/approved) for 6 days. After this a Admin took the steps to not only explain himself but made the situation right. PLease take a few moments and read this examplary statement behind TruSilver's actions [ [11]]. To have any admin take the time to put their reasons down in a respectful way is amazing, it rarely happens. But this honor of character didn't bring him the honor it should, instead he is met with threats and intimidation that if he doesn't reverse his actions he would be desysopped and sent to Arbcom. Why in the world would we punish right and good administrative actions? We should encourage this kind of review on all cases, Brews situation has detoriated from stop of the disruption to full blown wiki corruption of process. Consider one rationale from the arbcom case [ [12]], in this one argument is that trusilver didn't have Administrator support only editors, when did wikipedia decisions have to be made by Administrators. This is a great example of the heirachy of the Catholic Church in the medieval ages or the rule of a hostile aristocracy that demeans the common contributor. Please help, we welcome new editors but treat long standing ones like crap, somethign is wrong here. Hell In A Bucket ( talk) 16:11, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Guy, do you happen to have a pointer to that sarcastic essay? I'd love to read it. Cheers - DVdm ( talk) 17:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
And some would call that hubris. Another great example of not replying to the issue and attacking the person. Hell In A Bucket ( talk) 18:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Guy your petty threats do not scare me. I contribute to this encyclopedia in a meaningful way. If you think there needs to be more scrutiny on me for calling out cronies, falsehoods and inequities go for it. You would be one of many that has, they've all lost though. Until then please omit all references on what may happen Hell In A Bucket ( talk) 22:27, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
If ever there was a constitutional crisis on wikipedia, this is it, [14]. And it's interesting to note how editor Guy has stepped forward in an attempt to whitewash the situation. Guy has pulled out all the standard bureaucratic stops. One of these is to tell 'Hell in a Bucket' that appealing to Jimbo won't work. Well maybe it won't. But it certainly won't work if he doesn't appeal to Jimbo. Another classic stop was to denigrate Brews ohare by referring to his weird theory. To the best of my knowledge, Brews ohare doesn't have a weird theory, and I have been editing with Brews closely since he started wikipedia. The idea of Brews's weird theory is a plain lie. Then Guy pulled that other extraordinary classic about the idea that those who speak up in favour of Brews are the ones who are damaging him. This is arrant nonsense. The ones who are damaging Brews are the ones who are blocking him, banning him, and bearing false witness against him. A typical ARBCOM trial is based on the principle of identifying the villains at the beginning of the trial and putting them on the pillory. Any attempt by the accused to defend themselves will be seen as 'disruptive behaviour', and will be used to justify the final sanctions. That is how ARBCOM works. Often there are 'novi acti interventi' present at the ARBCOM trial, such as editor Ncmvocalist who trot around the courtroom giving back kicks to the accused and provoking reactions which are then used against them.
This latest problem surrounding administrator Trusilver is a classic example of the failure of the entire system. A total constitutional review is necessary and separation of powers is needed. A newly constituted arbitration committee needs to be established as a higher tier for the sole purpose of desysoping admins who abuse their tools. All law an order issues on wikipedia can be adequately dealt with by admins with a maximum three month block power. And I would hope that any new arbitration committee would not be needing a logo with a bunch of bananas on it. David Tombe ( talk) 03:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Jehochman and Finell, No. This is different. This gets to the very issue of two branches of the law hiding behind each other and promoting damage, in the absence of any adequate appeal procedure. This is a constitutional crisis if ever there was, and a long standing administrator Trusilver is on the pillory right now. Of course Wikipedia has a constitution. Just like the United Kingdom it may not have a written constitution, but it still has a constitution. And the monarch needs to step in right now. David Tombe ( talk) 04:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Tarc, Your statement that the unblock was beyond the pale reflects the very attitude that will eventually destroy wikipedia, unless the constitution is urgently attended to. What has set the alarm bells ringing for you in this case, is the fact that a serious challenge has been launched against the abuses of power that have been ongoing within the present system. When ARBCOM starts to demonstrate that they are indulging in power for power's sake, then it's time to close them down. I have no doubt that there will be many toadies who will support the current system for the sole purpose of gaining favour and protection from those who are abusing power. This vicious cycle needs to be removed at the roots. David Tombe ( talk) 05:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
No Guy, You are being told that wikipedia will be destroyed by corruption. At the moment, the arbitrators are indulging in a display of Chutzpah by willfully ignoring all the underlying facts in the Brews ohare case, while focusing exclusively on the lie that Trusilver has broken a rule. Trusilver has not broken any rule. Corruption has thrived in a web of bureaucracy, and this latest episode is an attempt by ARBCOM to lock the door on all the wrongdoings and keep the evil intact, by hiding behind the lie that Trusilver has broken a rule. David Tombe ( talk) 07:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Guy, Was that your best poker face? You didn't seriously think that I thought that you were going to acknowledge it, did you?. If I asked a government official on TV if he believed that the administration that he worked for was corrupt, do you think that he would say 'yes'? No he wouldn't. He would put on his best poker face and say 'no, there is absolutely no corruption whatsoever, and I laugh in the face of whoever should say otherwise'. Matters of whether or not there is corruption are ultimately for outsiders to decide upon. David Tombe ( talk) 09:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Johnuniq, You have missed the point here entirely. Trusilver did not overturn an ARBCOM sanction. He overturned what he considered to be a faulty interpretation of an ARBCOM sanction by another administrator. Theoretically there is absolutely no basis for ARBCOM to feel slighted over this matter, but for irrational reasons, they obviously do feel slighted. There is something very wrong with a system in which sanctity is given to the first administrator to get involved in any particular arbitration enforcement issue. There are many strands in all of this which need to be examined, but this particular strand seems to be the one that you are missing. When a government minister introduces secondary legislation under powers granted to him by primary legislation, that secondary legislation is subject to being overturned by either a constitutional court or a judicial review process if it is felt that the minister did not interpret his powers, as stated in the primary legislation, correctly. Parliament or congress does not feel slighted if a judicial review overturns a ministers secondary legislation. But no system would ever allow the interpretation of powers bestowed by primary legislation to become the sole preserve of whichever minister got there first. That is what is wrong here. That is what needs to be looked into. And JzG, I'm afraid that I've got nothing more to say to you beyond the fact that I've put you down for the Victor Hugo's Inspector Javert remedial course along with some others. David Tombe ( talk) 12:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Tarc, Your statement "I have no stake or interest in the original block" leaves me with no choice but to put you down for the remedial Victor Hugo course which DVdm has also volunteered to join. Inspector Javert had no interest whatsoever in the background story of any case. As far as Javert was concerned, once you crossed that line that was drawn by the secular law, you were a criminal and an outcast forevermore. And on that basis, he hounded and destroyed a good man Jean Valjean who had transgressed in a minor way at a time of great hardship. Later in life when Inspector Javert realized the folly of his ways, he couldn't cope with the change since he had been obsessed with the letter of the law all his life. So in a state of mental anguish, he threw himself into the River Seine. David Tombe ( talk) 16:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
That's good Tarc. So you've got it then. And so you will see that Trusilver was acting for the higher good, whereas Sandstein was acting like Inspector Javert. If Trusilver gets reprimanded as a result of his actions, it will be a bad day for wikipedia. Jimbo, never give up the master key. And Dvdm, it's a Tuesday where I am. David Tombe ( talk) 17:11, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Tarc: By eliminating any consideration of the original block, you have eliminated consideration of the type of block it is: a sanctions related block, or a garden variety block. Depending upon which it is, the rules are different. If it is a garden variety block, there is simply no argument that Trusilver was within his purview. In the opposite case, I'd still argue he was right, even though the rules differ, because Sandstein failed to follow protocol, and violated the terms stated by the sanctions against me requiring prior warning. Brews ohare ( talk) 20:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Here is a template proposed to attach to blocks based upon violation of a sanction. The idea is to advise an admin passing by that it is off-limits to overturn the block on their own initiative. It includes this language:
This wording is transferred from the so-called
2008 decision. I personally view the so-called
2008 decision as an illegal power grab by administrators disenfranchising the WP community at large, and imposing a vague ruling that can be interpreted and administered only by a certain elite group (the "Committee") with no review of their objectivity and judgment. In particular, this group conceivably might apply this ruling even though no sanction has been violated, because it is up to them to decide whether or not that has happened. Any administrator of the view that an error has occurred now must appeal to the "Committee", and not to the WP community at large.
It also is their prerogative to judge whether a so-called "clear, substantial, and active community consensus" exists, and no particulars are provided for making that judgment. For example, is "substantial" consensus a simple majority, a 2/3 majority, or is one administrator equal to 10 ordinary WP editors? When is consensus "clear"? If three oppose, two are in favor and 30 undecided, is that "unclear"? Is an editor "active" that never writes an article, or never holds office, or shows up just for this vote? Are decisions subject to open vote and argument, or just "Committee" edict?
What is a "written authorization"? How is it arrived at? Is it a majority vote of the "Committee" on a WP page like a WP:A/R report with community input?
What "Committee" is this (the "Sanctions Administration Committee"? The ArbCom?), and how are its members selected? How are its decisions appealed?
The adoption of a vague ruling such as the 2008 decision is not OK and has very far reaching ramifications for the entire operation of WP. Brews ohare ( talk) 22:03, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
(deindent)Experts who work in academia usually have a point of view to advertise. So what. There's nothing wrong with that, so long as the opponents are welcome too, and everyone adheres to NPOV. I don't believe that too many experts was ever a problem.
The central problem is that it is very difficult to protect technical content, because there is no requirement that a person who verifies it understands it, and the requirements of sourcing are interpreted by many people to exclude mathematical prose altogether. You can't write equations or proofs without doing what looks like OR to administratively minded editors. You have to check the equations against each other, you need to make sure that each one follows from the last, and you have to make sure that the imagery in the equations flows smoothly, just like in a novel.
Checking technical presentations requires reading the sources with understanding, and checking mathematics for accuracy, and for parallels with the source. These are nontrivial tasks, equivalent to proofreading for non-mathematical texts. Doing them is orders of magnitude more difficult than the analogous process for non-mathematical texts.
Instead of doing this, it is much easier to delete mathematical content on OR grounds. That's what happened at infraparticle. I won't mention other pages so that they won't be attacked. Likebox ( talk) 22:00, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Jimmy, if you are unaware of this, I'd like to bring it to your attention. If I don't, the press will.
I've opened a review at: WP:ANI#Mike Handel - blatant negative BLP hoax made DYK!.
Really, really, troubling. If action is not taken, the next one won't be a hoax.-- Scott Mac (Doc) 13:14, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
When you talk about support, people who post in the BLP noticeboard find little or no admin support because admins read AN and ANI and not much else. Sole Soul ( talk) 16:19, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
It isn't just WP:PROF and WP:ATHLETE that need tightening up. There are a couple other categories we tend to turn a blind eye to, such as Category:Internet personalities, or seiyu with long lists of credits but no actual third party biographical coverage. We also frequently look the other way for a musician who has an obscure charting album but lacks biographical coverage. JBsupreme ( talk) 20:15, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
I think this is a symptom of a fundamental mistake in the way we approach WP:V. It shouldn't be about articles being verifiable, but about articles being verified. Eventualism was a fine philosophy when we had millions of articles to write, but is not so hot when you have millions of articles already written an in desperate need of attention. "It'll be fixed eventually" was a reasonable mantra when we were just starting, but we're there now and it's time to fix. — Coren (talk) 20:43, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Even by the standards of this page, the noise-to-signal ratio of the current version is extraordinarily high. The page is also unusually long, with unusually long threads (and these have the highest noise content). Does anyone keep statistics on these things? Has anyone looked for a correlation with the full moon?— Finell 04:29, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo,
I would like to highlight that March is Women's History Month in the United States (and maybe other places, too.) And March 8 is International Women's Day.
National Women's History Project's 2010 Theme is "Writing Women Back into History" and I think that is a good reminder that Wikipedia English has quite a few gaps in our coverage of topics including gaps in our coverage of women.
For example's many articles about woman's role in military history are missing.
It would be great if you created or expanded one or two biographies about women this month. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 07:25, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Hi, about the poll, your close seems to suggest you'd like the opinion of as many users as possible. I was thinking that 4-5 days seems very short, as users are not always quick to comment even if aware of a poll, because they want to think about it a bit further, esp. when they didn't participate in prior discussions (which were almost a year ago). Furthermore, as you can see, this kind of polls has a tendency to attract many supports in the beginning then much more opposes than initially. I would suggest for the next poll a duration of 2 weeks and much more advertizing, otherwise in my opinion, it wouldn't be representative enough of the community. Cenarium ( talk) 15:31, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello Mr Wales,
I am writing this to say a little bit of my appreciation to you for founding and setting this wonderful project (perhaps one of the most influentual projects of the 21st century). Wikipedia has helped me a lot with my school work and it has also expanded my knowledge of the world around me. I can't really imagine (or has ever imagined), what this world would be like with Wikipedia. I am a newbie myself with editing, even though I have using the site for so long. I hope that Wikipedia will grow to become the largest website-in term of capacity-in the world (I don't think it's not far off now :)). All in all, I just want to express to you my appreciation of the work you have done, just nearly a decade ago, and I hope that Wikipedians and the website itself, will strive for the better in the near future, and for decades to come.
Thank you very much, Mr Wales.
Sp33dyphil 04:59, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Since you founded Wikipedia, maybe you can answer this question:
Why are we called "Users" here? After all, we don't "Use" Wikipedia, we edit it.-- RM ( Be my friend) 16:49, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
moved here from Talk:Jimmy Wales Tarc ( talk) 17:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello Jimmy!
Wikipedia article calls for a new tab called for example "narrative", because there is the other side of the coin: the kind of information one cannot find any references, as it is more like self-educated knowledge.
For example aerodynamics: airfoil. One could write a long article about the topic but he/she is still inable to explain the idea "by heart" because there is no references - except if he/she writes a scientific article about the explanation of airfoil" before writing the "explanative" wikiarticle.
the new tab could be placed in between tabs "article" and "discussion" and included in every wikiarticle. it could contain completely different point of view than the main article or a narrative where the ideas in the main article are explained 'by own words'.
thanks for reading. -- 86.50.34.133 ( talk) 10:05, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Dear Mr. Wales, I am sorry to disturb You and to use this channel, but it seems to me that some bits of our communication have been lost on their way and I am looking for some urgent information. So I have recently sent You another e-mail and I wait for Your kind e-mail answer. With many thanks, writing for Wikimedia Czech Republic Okino ( talk) 19:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your contributions to the encyclopedia! In case you are not already aware, an article to which you have recently contributed,
Richard Lindzen, is on
article probation. A detailed description of the terms of article probation may be found at
Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation. Also note that the terms of some article probations extend to related articles and their associated talk pages.
The above is a
templated message. Please accept it as a routine friendly notice, not as a claim that there is any problem with your edits. Thank you. --
TS 18:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Several editors (
and I) tried to do something about it.
An admin, with a WikiProject LGBT studies article alert on the top of his talk page,
canvassed at the LGBT cabal -- and we were beat down by mobocracy.
[15]
It was disappointing seeing both editors and admins
actively fighting for slagging Miss Prejean any way they could, including disclosing private facts. Most of what was put into the 'article', was put in there to harm Miss Prejean's reputation.
A casual look at the relatively low quality references is telling.
Most of the 'encyclopedia article' is about the fact that Miss Prejean said she believed marriage was between a man and a woman, when asked, and the resulting fallout. There is very little else in the article.
Interestingly enough, the article references
another article that's specifically for that -- so there are two articles about it.
We were unable to swim against the tide of
thinly masked hatred.
I ultimately posted my impression of the reality of Wikipedia's attack coatracks dressed up like biographies of living persons
here. --
Rico 23:06, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
This vandalous edit went by unnoticed for 90 minutes. Who knows how longer had I not vigorously pursued my watchlist. Remind me again why we haven't already enabled flagged revisions for BLP articles? JBsupreme ( talk) 05:57, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
It may be this talk page :) DeepNorth ( talk) 04:56, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Mr. Wales,
For the last year I have struggled in vain to balance the abuses of the rights of living climate scientists the world over to have a fair, neutral, accurate biography. A year later, it's safe to say that I have achieved practically nothing, and the reason I have achieved nothing is that your gang of mostly immature, often 20-something editors and admins have closed ranks in nearly all instances to obstruct and thwart all progress.
I am not the first to notice this. Lawrence Solomon has, of course, written about it in the Financial Post in Canada a few times, and has blamed the situation personally on two of your editors, William M. Connolley and Kim D. Petersen. I disagree with Lawrence Solomon in blaming these two editors. You created Wikipedia. You allow your editors to do what they do. You are the founder and by remaining neutral on flagrant NPOV and BLP abuses, you are responsible, and you should answer to the public.
Does the public understand that millions of dollars of charitable donations are spent by Wikipedia in funding the smearing of the professional reputations of great living scientists such as Richard Lindzen, Roger Pielke Sr., or S. Fred Singer each day?
I have spent countless hours of the last year defending in vain the biographies of Richard Lindzen, Ross McKitrick, Garth Paltridge, Roger A. Pielke, and Lawrence Solomon. I have even helped out the gang in defending the likes of Rajendra K. Pachauri and Michael E. Mann occasionally. I've cleaned up Gavin Schmidt's and Raymond Pierrehumbert's biographies, but this has does little to soften the environmentalist, agenda-driven hatred your editors feel towards anyone perceived to be skeptical of anthropogenic climate change.
In the whole year, I have not received a single word of support from anyone in the Wikipedia Foundation, and practically none of the Wikipedia admins have ever helped either. A few skeptics in the admin community have helped, a bit, but most of those apparently see the fight as futile, and no one who simply cares about fairness and policy has ever stepped in to help. This is wrong, I realise. An editor, ATren, did step in, but he seems to have been finally burnt out and driven away now. Alex Harvey ( talk) 15:35, 9 March 2010 (UTC) Meanwhile, my own talk page, unedited since I joined, testifies to the bullying I have received, instead, from your editors.
I should like to let you know that I have in principle approval to write up a first hand, insider's account of what goes on here, at the blog of a very prominent climate scientist. If published, my piece will not be written off as the rantings of a denier, because the scientist is well respected by the mainstream media, and he is not a skeptic. It will largely serve to independently confirm the observations of Mr. Solomon. Except, as I say, I disagree with Lawrence Solomon on one important point: I believe that you are personally responsible; it is wrong to blame all of this on the actions of two well-intentioned, fanatical volunteers.
Without an effective leader, it is my serious view that Wikipedia needs to be forcibly taken over either commercially or by government, for the good of the people. I will be leaving Wikipedia, and advocating for such a change, shortly. If, on the other hand, you would like to help me fix the BLPs of climate scientists, there is a small amount of energy left in me to continue.
Regards,
Alex Harvey ( talk) 07:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
By which company or government does Alex propose Wikipedia be taken over? Tasty monster ( TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 13:26, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Mr. Wales, if you are concerned that I could quote you out of context, would you clarify the context of that remark then? I mean specifically, "...whenever I have checked articles in the past, I have been mostly unimpressed with the claims that [the climate change BLP] articles are particularly problematic." Does it mean that you think it's fine for amateurs to write up sloppy, inaccurate biographies of living people and get it all wrong? Or do you mean that it's not fine, but it's just that other Wikipedia BLPs are even worse? (I wouldn't know about this, as I've focused exclusively on the climate change BLP pages.) Or do you mean that you think Wikipedia has largely got the climate change BLPs right? Alex Harvey ( talk) 15:18, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Jimbo, as a previously uninvolved editor, I believe that I can shed some light on the situation. About 3 months ago, I began editing our
Climatic Research Unit hacking incident article and inadvertently got caught up in a
battle between two groups of warring factions. From what I've been able to gather, this battle has been going on for years. Both sides routinely ignore our policies on
neutrality,
verifiability and
biographies of living people and only seek to include content that advances their POV while simultaneously excluding content that is against their POV. I attempted in good faith to improve our
Climatic Research Unit hacking incident article's
neutrality, and was routinely attacked and harassed by both warring factions. In my short time in this topic space, this war has been brought up at several venues including most of our noticeboards (BLP, OR, RS, NPOV, FRINGE, COI, Admin), not to mention
WP:Mediation Cabal and ArbCom but the community has consistently failed to resolve the situation. The issue is currently at
WP:General_sanctions/Climate_change_probation where it also remains unresolved.
Neither side seems to care about the harm that they're doing to Wikipedia. My personal feeling is that editors who care more about advancing an agenda (rather than building an encyclopedia) are not an asset to this project but a detriment.
In any case, I gave up in frustration and no longer edit any articles in this topic space. Since someone else has brought the problem to your attention, I thought a neutral voice might help understand the situation.
BTW, sorry for the lack of diffs. The edit histories of all these pages are too long and complicated to sift through. A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 17:03, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Dear Jimbo, As a newcomer to Wikipedia I have followed these two factions battle it out on climate change issues since November last year. I completely support 'A Quest For Knowledge' frustration.
Here is my suggestions: Temporarily remove ALL Wikipedia pages related to Climate science as they now stand for a period of 6 months. If the kids are not playing nice then take the toys away! This will hopefully discourage the fanatical elements on both sides of the debate. 130.232.214.10 ( talk) 17:30, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
All of the above boils down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT, occasioned by frustration that an article has not been slanted in favour of one POV. -- ChrisO ( talk) 19:43, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Mr. Wales:
Those saying that a cabal of extremely POV editors have hijacked the Climate articles are completely correct. Those denying it appear to be members of that very Cabal. They are assiduous in their pursuit of having WP represent their point of view and only their point of view. They are so determined that they hunt down any entry like this and jump on it to make sure it does not interfere with the party line. I think it would be instructive to follow a few conversations by those saying that people complaining to you are somehow fringe elements crying foul because their minority opinion is being trampled. They are correct that the complainers are (at any given point in time) in the minority. However, that is because they drive off and even have banned anyone with the temerity to voice a contrary opinion. You *will* see that (as above with Alex Harvey) eventually after many (many, many) incidents of baiting, badgering, bullying, etc, that people get frustrated and become intemperate. Alex should not have been so heavy handed, but he was surely driven to it by a level of frustration that no ordinary person would bear. Certainly, the ones doing the systematic baiting and banning show not nearly the temperance of their victims.
You should not be expected to personally intervene, even in things as shocking as this. However, I implore you to charge somebody with selecting a group of truly neutral editors with a background that allows them to judge a little science and logic to review all of the Climate articles (particularly the 'memory-holed' missing article on Climategate) and help to bring them back to some semblance of reality.
Like others, I took a stab at trying to cure the ills of the bogus thing attempting to make it appear that there is no such thing as Climategate. Like others, my work was quickly and surely sent to the memory hole. About two thirds of what I wrote has simply disappeared.
Here is something to ponder: those who have found that the Climate articles are POV and have attempted to make corrections have been bullied right out of Wikipedia -- many of them banned outright. Nobody, as far as I can tell, who has been a pro AGW POV pusher or sympathizer has been pushed out. There are a fair number of people who were baited and bullied out of the picture -- more, I would say, than the side that pushed them out. The side that pushed them out has the most annoying habit of saying that the majority supports their POV and pushing out anyone who disagrees. What is wrong with that picture?
Let's say, for the sake of argument that I am an egregious and disruptive POV pusher myself and/or a sock or whatever else they use to ride people out of town on a rail. Still, would you entertain what I feel is an idea that has some hope of restoring balance to this subject area and removing the terrible black eye that is the denial (ironic, no?) of the existence of Climategate? Here is my idea: anyone who has made more than a tiny number of edits to the body of Climate related articles, should recuse themselves or be recused forcibly from making any changes to these articles for a year. Any admin that is not clearly at arm's length from the subject should similarly be recused. There are a bunch of admins who clearly are involved and more who have participated in a way that makes them similarly unfit.
Allow the recused editors to help to identify the articles in question (there are a lot and about half should be removed IMO). Send the new admins and editors out on a mission to tag, hack, slash the obvious stuff and allow the clear interest in the community at large to bring new editors in to do the 'heavy lifting' of article re-write.
During this one-year hiatus, the WP community needs to find some way to prevent a long term campaign of subtle vandalism like this from happening again or at the least some effective and rapid mechanism for correcting it when it has been found out. This stain has existed in WP for years and the Climategate blot has existed for months and appears impossible to correct. Wikipedia in other languages generally have a proper 'Climategate' entry, for instance. I expect that is because they are not within reach of the community of gatekeepers that have hijacked the English version.
The above is an extreme prescriptive and this entire entry (my text included) is a cheeky intrusion on the time of someone in the public eye who is very busy. However, there appears to be no mechanism in place to allow an effective way to fix this and the problem, is severe. There is no question at all that the Climate articles have been manipulated by a group of editors with a clear point of view. There are even conflicts of interest that do not stop some editors. The articles reflect very badly on Wikipedia. They are inaccurate or misleading themselves and so taint what has become an import subject affecting the public. They also call into question the relative verity and fairness of the entire enterprise. If this subject area can be so thoroughly dominated, controlled and skewed in a way that decreases their quality, then why not others? There is no shortage of people in this world with axes to grind, of that you can be sure.
I *LOVE* this encyclopedia. It is a thing of great beauty, warts and all. It is one of my favorite things. Its system of governance (and/or lack thereof) has allowed it to grow and flourish in a spectacular way. I am sure you would be understandably reluctant to tinker with this formula for success. I am not asking you to intervene personally in the particulars, because I do not feel that would be appropriate. I am asking you to intervene to have trusted admins and editors bring order and balance to an area of Wikipedia, that despite its excellent systems of governance (and I particularly *like* the lack thereof part) has been injured by (perhaps well-meaning) zealots.
I believe there has been impropriety. However, I am not asking that you act on that assumption. I am asking you to act because whether it exists or not there is a strong appearance of impropriety and, even if it is only that, it is stain on this grand enterprise that should be and can be removed. Just fixing the appearance of a problem will increase trust and confidence in the work as a whole and at the very least there is very definitely the appearance of a problem. DeepNorth ( talk) 22:44, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
You wrote, among other things, that you "took a stab at trying to cure the ills of the bogus thing attempting to make it appear that there is no such thing as Climategate." Can you point me to more specifics? I just looked for the article, it is there, and does not seem to deny the existence of this incident at all. Not only does the event appear to be presented pretty comprehensively in the main article, we even have a separate article detailing the contents of the leaked emails: Climatic Research Unit documents. Now, I'm sure many complaints could be made about how this has been written about at various times. Yet, I don't think it is particularly helpful to wildly overstate the case, as you appear to have done. How does English Wikipedia's coverage of this incident differ from other language versions? Please be detailed.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 00:30, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Dear Mr. Wales, I am rather taken aback by your responses. I had supposed that you would either ignore me, or remain neutral, or have someone respond by proxy, or maybe say something that would weakly but without commitment acknowledge the problem. It was my hope, I must admit, although not my expectation, that you would actually take the matter seriously and investigate it before responding. I'll have to say that I didn't even consider that in the worst case you would get back in a few hours and just casually declare your sympathy with the editors who wrote these disgraceful climate change biographies. You say you don't want me to quote you out of context, but you said what you said. I have no intention of being unfair to you but the public has the right to know this. I realise that you're not a climate scientist and I can't expect you to already understand the full extent of the problem, but it seems inconceivable to me that you haven't looked at, say, S. Fred Singer's disgraceful article, after Lawrence Solomon has repeatedly pointed it out to you in the press. I just double-checked it, and it's still a disgrace. So I can only conclude that you think it's roughly what Singer deserves. Anyhow, here's some news for you: It's Not. It's not your right to allow juvenile, anonymous trolls to trash the lives of great living scientists -- even if you think they're bad people. If I type Fred Singer into Google, I am directed immediately to your site. I see two brief paragraphs about his life, and then it's just environmentalist propaganda all the way to the finish. It's not right. And you ask me for diffs, but I can't for the life of me understand why you would want diffs. How could you possibly think that my experiences can be communicated as a convenient set of diffs for you to review? I am talking about disputes that have lasted weeks, months, and in the Lindzen article case, years, and you ask me for diffs. I can't spoon feed this to you. If you want to understand what one must endure in order to fix this awful problem you have created, you will need to either read the talk pages from beginning to end, or read my publicly archived contribution history. It seems pretty clear to me, though, that you're really not very interested. I'd still like you to prove me wrong though... Alex Harvey ( talk) 11:20, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Hans, if I'm not mistaken, the article started off as "Climategate". [16] There is already a broad consensus to change the article name to something neutral, but the process was derailed after an editor started making false allegations of canvassing. Although that editor has been warned by the admins, [17] the article still hasn't been renamed. A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 13:39, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Jimbo, I'm disappointed to see you expressing opinions supporting a partisan term used to promote fringe or pseudoscientific viewpoints in an area of contrived political controversy over a clear majority scientific view. Please note that while the partisan term "climategate" is common, it is by no means universal and is treated carefully by more reputable sources – for example, Hacked climate science emails | Environment | guardian.co.uk . . dave souza, talk 17:21, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
@ Jimbo, thanks for your thoughtful response. As you suggest, I've had a look at the coverage in the NYT. Although a search shows considerable use of the term in their letters pages and blogs, as with the Guardian, they too have been pretty careful, using it specifically regarding "The e-mail episode, dubbed 'climategate' by critics," [32] or "a recent controversy surrounding e-mails stolen from climate scientists that some have dubbed 'Climategate.'" [33] In other coverage of controversies referring to the e-mails, they've not used the term, [34] [35] [36] and it's noticeably absent from an op-ed, [37] and from an Associated Press story they ran. [38] Less reliable sources have been more indiscriminate, using "climategate" as a catch-all for complaints about mainstream climate science completely unrelated to the e-mail issue. [39] [40] [41] The scandal isn't confined to the behaviour of the scientists, as the Guardian noted in its 12 part investigation, as in Part two: How the 'climategate' scandal is bogus and based on climate sceptics' lies. Underlying issues include the extent to which data, preliminary calculations, and private e-mails should normally be provided for non-scientific criticism – this could mark a shift in the way science is done. [42] The term "climategate" is indeed political language, and we're looking at adding a specific article about the term, but the background and issues raised by this incident go well beyond that particular political aspect of the science. . . dave souza, talk 16:33, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Dear Mr. Wales, the Garth Paltridge article is the only article I was able to get into a stable, approximately sane state, and as it is not attracting internet trolls at the moment I'd say I've done a fair job. Which is not to say I am 100% happy with it. I think it probably should mention that since retirement Paltridge has declared himself a skeptic on CO2 caused climate change -- I think both Paltridge and the reader would be happy with that -- but not mentioning his skepticism at all was a compromise acceptable to both factions. But if you are interested in that article, I suggest you start with its very first revision, rather than the state it is in now, and then read through the talk page. If you read through the talk page, you will most likely be horrified by what you find. Regarding Fred Singer's article, there is a section called "consulting" but no section called "scientific work". Does that mean he was a scientist, or a consultant? After the career section, we find ourselves in the year 2007, then in 1994. Then we get to the 1980s, then to 1997, 2004, 2009, 2008, we stop by at 1991 for a bit of gossip, before we go back to 1960 just for one sentence, then to 1981, then 1994, and finally to 1991 again where the article concludes. Is the problem that Wikipedia's editors have no sense of chronology, or is it that they simply don't like Fred Singer? As the reader, I want to know what happened in the 1960s and 1970s? There are doubtlessly other problems with the article, but I haven't researched Singer's career at the moment so I'll leave you with the self-evident stuff. Finally, I am sorry if I have offended you. I am tired, so I will stop here. Alex Harvey ( talk) 08:13, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Jimbo, I came here to warn you that the climate change BLPs are truly awful things and to remind you that, unfortunately, in any organisation, whether business, government or NGO, accountability rests ulimately with the executive. You seem to opted for a sort of figurehead role here but it is not clear to me that you have actually delegated any responsibility. So it seems to me that you must remain personally accountable for the abuses of this system. (If that is wrong then let me know who I should talk to.) If I seem nasty, or ill-tempered, I still mean you well. I came here to your talk page because there was nowhere else to go. Will you act? If you wish to do something, I am willing to continue to help. I should like to assure you that I have no intention to quote you or misquote you or in any way attack you personally but it does remain clear to me that something has to be done. You need neutral, mature, strong people to step in to fix the climate change pages. Alex Harvey ( talk) 13:09, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
I can't believe I came across this page (for a totally unrelated reason) and found this issue being addressed. It doesn't surprise me that Alex's initial concerns have spilled over to involve many of the other issues surrounding this subject matter. For too long, these articles have been manipulated by a small group of frighteningly coordinated activists with endless patience for subverting the efforts of well-meaning editors, many of whom quickly find their patience in fighting for what's right and good for the encyclopedia simply cannot match that of those fighting to protect an agenda. Those who do risk sinister repercussions.
I only became aware of the struggles with this subject a few months ago. Finding the base global warming article a bit off, I opted to assess it. As with anything I do here (including this post, which took over an hour to write), I was thorough, objective, and meticulous in
my assessment.
I've always considered the time and effort I apply to even the most mundane tasks at wikipedia very valuable and well-spent. And recently, it has bothered me to have to make every effort to ignore the
state of articles relating to global warming. In fact, I do my best to avoid them altogether because, despite having met several editors with similar concerns, I never feel more alone, or that my effort is more wasted, than when I make suggestions for improving them (actually editing them has essentially been rendered unconscionable).
That the encyclopedia has been subversively denied a proper
Climategate article simply breaks my heart every time I think about it. Even if it doesn't mean it will be immediately resolved, seeing Jimbo is now actually aware of it has done wonders for my morale. I have the utmost faith in his objectivity.
What I saw in my research for the aforementioned assessment (and then the response to it), was extremely disheartening. And I guess having borne witness to the organization, duration, and extent of manipulation, I could not muster the wherewithal to oppose it. Like other well-intentioned editors before me, I simply could not find it within me to take up the sword and fight the good fight.
And that makes me sad.
--
K10wnsta (
talk) 21:12, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Just for the record: the english wikipedia had at some time an article about the Roman Warm Period. It's gone. The german wikipedia still has one: Optimum_der_R%C3%B6merzeit How about deleting that as well for consistency? Have fun. 91.34.242.19 ( talk) 00:21, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
I disagree. The absence of an article on Roman Warm Period is unconscionable, particularly in view of its previous existence. If not due to conspiracy, what, I beg you? The link you provide [ [64]] is unavailable except to administrators. Wonder why... What's next - Holocene Climatic Optimum? Medieval Warm Period? Little Ice Age? Oiler99 ( talk) 05:36, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Hi folks, I just stumbled upon this discussion. I'm new to Wikipedia and only just discovered that there even was a "Jimbo Wales" page, and I haven't been involved in any of these climate issues. My two cents is that neither "Climategate" nor the current mouthful of a title is adequate. "Climategate" is the term critics use, and seems to be used by the Times in scare quotes. The "hacking incident" title, I agree, just won't work either. Why not "Global warming email interception"? "Hacking" is prejudicial, and the "-gate" suffice is prejudicial too. Both take sides. ScottyBerg ( talk) 22:05, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Dear Jimbo, although not a member myself, I would cordially like to invite you to a workshop where you can learn all about disrupting and decieving Wikimedia with experiments in practice. This workshop is being organised on a website you may be familiar with, Wikiversity. There is no doubt that you would be welcome to participate. Just leave your name on the page [65] Who knows, they might even design a few barnstars for exceptional graduates. If they plant an operative on the permanent staff they might even be able to pinch the petty kitty. There are many such possibilities for reward so get yourself over there before the list fills up. ~ R. T. G 21:18, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
The Barnstar of Integrity | ||
When the rest sat around for three months talking about a project designed to attack Wikimedia, Jimbo no sooner heard about it and it was gone. ~ R. T. G 02:13, 13 March 2010 (UTC) |
Except that it's back now replete with begging the question in its parameters:
Feel free to make suggestions below - you may even be able to make a point while you're at it! (see no.s 5 and 6 below ;-)
And I have to say that "censorship" is one of the no. 1 red flag terms used by POV-pushers (the other being "suppression") to describe situations where policy overrules their attempts to reflect the world as they would like it to be rather than as it is. Guy ( Help!) 13:26, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
A discussion on the topics raised on this page regarding BLP abuse by activists has been opened here. [66] It is specifically a discussion documenting activity in which two Wiki editors engage in extended off-wiki wars and then edit their opponents BLP's here. 99.142.1.101 ( talk) 23:12, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
The rise of the internet has been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it has generated an almost hermetically-sealed echo chamber, in which science warriors can circulate, adapt and modify the factoids, talking points and bogus quotations that are the stock in trade of opinion pieces like those mentioned above.
On the other hand, for anyone who is aware of the general strategy adopted by the advocates of ‘sound science’, resources like Google and Wikipedia provide immediate confirmation in particular instances. In the past, an opinion piece by, say, Steven Milloy, would appear with an uninformative or misleading byline, and would be given the benefit of the doubt by most readers. Now, anyone who performs a basic check can discover, with little effort, the full history of his efforts as tobacco lobbyist and hired gun for polluting industries.
There is some "featured articles" (and other articles) with missing source refs in many paragraphs of the article. Administrators and ArbCom of Russian Wikipedia believes, that mass source requesting in articles - is "destructive behavior", "harrasment of authors" and "bring to the absurd". They rollbacks source requests (at example, in Russian articles Protein, Sikkim), indefinitely blocks users (for example, ru:User:SkyBon was indefinitely blocked for source requesting in Russian article Sikkim) and protects articles. In this case admins and arbiters refer to the part of rule Wikipedia:Verifiability which is called " Do not make it to absurdity". But it part of rule is absent in the English section of Wikipedia. It is long conflict (I was indefinite blocked in Russian Wikipedia 1 year ago for source requesting in the controversial articles too). In the blog ru_wikipedia we found a lot of mistakes in "featured articles" written by administrators and arbiters (for example, article w:ru:Калан (Sea otter) has more than 100 errors, article Sikkim has more than 50 errors). I think that many errors in Wikipedia caused by lack of sources. What do you think about partly-sourced articles, when many paragraphs did not contain references to the source? Can it have a "featured articles" state? Can be user blocked for source requesting at the end of all non-trivial paragraphs in "featured article"? Thank. X-romix ( talk) 10:22, 14 March 2010 (UTC) P.S. The motive for such activity (mass stamped query on links to "featured" articles written by "party of administrators") is not a private persecution, but an attempt to improve the situation with links and reliability of the information in the Russian Wikipedia. X-romix ( talk) 11:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Additionally, I propose a templates to verify text of the article:
Careful inspection reveals many inconsistencies with sources in articles written by different people. But testing and marking text as unsourced or not presented in source is perceived as a personal attack, adherence to stalinism, lysenkoism etc. by some users and admins. There is need to rule for checking articles and marking all paragraphs of text as "passed checking" (especially in "featured" articles of Wikipedia, where is so many errors, paragraphs with no any sources and inconsistencies with sources by the "ref" tag). X-romix ( talk) 12:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
I am from Texas and I am amazed by the machinations of both sides of the debate over content of the public school textbooks. The problem is not at all that one group or another yearns for their world view to be mirrored in the standards for Texas textbooks (and from there a plurality of state's adopted textbooks)
No. The problem is that the debate centers on bound volumes, printed at great expense that are out of date before they appear on the shelves. The obvious solution is an open source textbook projects.
Is Wiki-world interested in this project? I would appreciate any feedback on this.
Thanks, Kirk Holden <e-mail address redacted> —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rjvg50 ( talk • contribs) 22:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
There seems to be a general impression that the large majority of sources in English-speaking media use the term "Climategate", that a few avoid it, and that many (less than a majority) use it in inverted commas. (The results of my Google News searches confirm this.) In other words: Most media use it as a name, but a significant minority use it as a non-neutral description, clearly marked as such, or not at all.
There is also the earlier precedent of Attorneygate, which, as you will note, is also a redirect. This is explicitly mentioned in WP:TITLE since at least November. WP:TITLE also links to WP:Words to avoid, which has been saying explicitly for more than a year that titles ending in -gate are not admissible unless they refer to historical scandals.
I think that your very clear statement that the article should be titled "Climategate" has not been helpful for finding consensus.
See Talk:Climatic Research Unit hacking incident#A little policy reader and the section followed by it for further information. If you meant to override established, nuanced policies that speak almost specifically about this case even though they predate it, then you should say so very clearly. Hans Adler 00:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
The purpose of this post was to alert Jimbo to a specific exchange at the article talk page that should interest him. [73] [74] (I just noticed that I forgot the links originally.) Sorry for having formulated it in a way that you could understand as an invitation to fork our ongoing discussion. I don't think this would improve its quality. Just do not pretend that I am not responding to your arguments elsewhere. Thank you. (Perhaps I should use email next time.)
This is definitely my last word here unless Jimbo decides to react. Hans Adler 13:30, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Sorry about this. Your talk page has been busy, busy, busy while I was doing this. Cheers!
Re: You wrote, among other things, that you "took a stab at trying to cure the ills of the bogus thing attempting to make it appear that there is no such thing as Climategate." Can you point me to more specifics? I just looked for the article, it is there, and does not seem to deny the existence of this incident at all.
Here is the Wikipedia page, for those who are interested on Climategate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Climategate&redirect=no
It is just a stub that redirects you to a discussion that might as well be about something else.
We do not have an entry proper for Climategate. We have a redirect that points to something different. In fact, it points to something you rightly describe as 'this incident'. Climategate should have its own article and it should take its proper name. Since it is not 'an incident', 'incident' should not be part of the name. I deal with that naming issue and how it relates to (nominal) policy here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DeepNorth/Drafts
Wikipedia's guidelines for naming an article are very clear and the only name that satisfies them is 'Climategate'. The current name is misleading, prejudicial and just plain wrong.
Instead of the umbrella name for a sweeping scandal (tons of items in link above) -- misbehavior and alleged misbehavior spanning decades, we redirect someone searching for 'Climategate' to 'Climatic Research Unit hacking incident' -- as if Climategate is merely about a smallish crime ('incident') directed *against* people at UAE and the thing that is immediately known and important about this is that somebody illegally hacked into the UAE system and that the hacking event was being taken very seriously and being investigated by the police.
Except on 'opposite day' the 'persons of interest' in a crime here are the authors of some of the Emails, not the (IMO whistleblower) person who let them out into the wild. In the real world, what is germane is the content of that FOAI.zip data file and what it may mean for the integrity of Climate Science in particular and now even the governance of mainstream Science in general.
I deal with the Article as I found it at the time in the link below. I attempted to get a balanced view, based on what was actually known, similar to that given at 'Watergate Scandal' by using that page (Watergate) as a template. I used the prior version in these diffs: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Watergate_scandal&action=historysubmit&diff=348617087&oldid=331864938
Here is what I wrote. It was widely referenced prior to being pitched into oblivion here at WP:
I didn't sign it (my bad), but at the time I really was just an uninvolved editor. There are about 50 web pages properly referencing my modest comment, even though it was quickly disappeared from the discussion.
There are about 70 pages properly referencing the title of the article replacing Climategate even though it has been Ranked number one in a Google search for months.
There are anywhere from 1 to 50 million pages properly referencing 'Climategate' (as such, by name) depending upon how you look at it.
The current article title is about as wrong as an article title could be and still have some relation to its subject matter. It goes down from there. The opening paragraph is misleading to the point of being an effective falsehood. Climategate is not 'about' a hacking incident. This article is, but it has no business pretending to stand in for the real thing.
UEA itself is not notable enough for a security breach (if it even was one) to merit an article.
I took a look just prior to saving this and the article does not look much better 'spin-wise' than usual. It looks like it was written by an AGW apologist who had no choice but to address things gone too far public, but everything gets a spin and at the end, they refer you to only two pages:
See also:
* Global warming conspiracy theory * Global warming controversy
I am not, by any stretch of the imagination the only person who has complained that Climategate and the rest of the climate articles have been manipulated. If you follow the links through all of this you will find links to various skeptics and in their article they seem to be only all about 'denialism'. If you are skeptical and vocal, you can expect your biography to be a hatchet job. If you have a high profile like Richard Lindzen they will take care, but you are still not likely to get fair treatment. If you are pro AGW, you can expect to get spun nicely. Phil Jones is, essentially, the bad guy in the Climategate Emails. He is the one who was cheered at the news of a colleagues death. He was the one that said he would 'hide behind that' and 'destroy data' rater than release it and redefine the peer reviewed literature. He is the one who said the infamous 'hide the decline', which although it does not mean what people think it does is still not good. Phil Jone's entry looks like an apologia written by his publicist. It includes the howler about the prima facie evidence by UEA shill-meisters and the entry trails off with a list of four of his publications.
The main part of the article on Lindzen ends thus:
"Lindzen clearly relishes the role of naysayer. He'll even expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking. He speaks in full, impeccably logical paragraphs, and he punctuates his measured cadences with thoughtful drags on a cigarette"
They don't list any publications of Lindzen's, though they do link to a list of his many hundreds of publications.
The 'push' of the POV is crafty and can be subtle, but it is there in spades and the poster-child for this mangling of Wikipedia is the pre-emption of the article on Climategate.
I am recusing myself for now. This is so vexatious! Thank you very much for your attention. I am happy that you listened and though I would be delighted if you could fix this I am not expecting you to and I do not believe you have any obligation to do so.
Great job fostering and watching over WP, which is still a thing of wonderment, warts and all! DeepNorth ( talk) 21:06, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Re: "There are genuine issues of how scientists should respond to vexatious misuse of FOI requests ... coming from people with no intention of working on the science of the subject ... These issues are being examined in several enquiries (sic), but in the interim simply repeating misinformation is irresponsible and inappropriate in Wikipedia."
OMG. I hardly know what to say about the above. It is as if I am shilling for myself ... It should be easy enough to find the link. McKitrick's (sp?) submission to one of them shows clearly (from the record that is already public) that Phil Jones' resolve to withhold data *precedes* the two or three (!) requests that came his way from Mckintyre (sp?) and company. I would say that M&M deserve significant credit for doing some of the best work on climate data thus far. Again, as I say, pretty much everything I say is already part of the public record. It ain't goin' nowhere. DeepNorth ( talk) 21:11, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree that I have been prickly. I don't think I started out that way. I surely did not come here because some part of the blogosphere suggested I do so. I was here long before even my screen name was registered. Whatever I have done here (on WP generally) has largely been anonymous. The only reason I registered the screen name was to put up stuff on programming. the only reason that there are no articles in evidence is because some well meaning but over-zealous editor kept deleting my graphics (created and owned by me) and exhausted my time before I could get the articles up. On sober second thought, when I had the time again, I was unsure (still am) if this would be more 'original research' and so elected to publish elsewhere. That's about it for my original presence here (which goes back a lot longer than my screen name). Climategate was in the news and a Google search brings the WP page (such as it is) up as the top ranked hit on a search. I came here and was appalled at what I found. I still am. It is shocking. My initial impression was maybe you had a point and I went looking. The more I looked the more gruesome it looked. The while AGW thing was a scandal long before Climategate hit. I will absolutely own being a 'skeptic'. There is nothing at all wrong with skepticism. It is healthy. It is just about mandatory when doing research. My stuff especially (not climate -- data stuff). To be honest, though, having done a little research into Climate many years ago at school, I never thought the AGW POV had enough merit even to argue about. I had no idea it had gained such traction. I still, I swear, have no idea what the chain of evidence is supposed to be that links CO2 to Global Warming (causally, of any net additional significance) or Global Warming to catastrophe or catastrophe to something we can mitigate at a cost that is less than adapting. All of the 'pro AGW' camp seems to be able to present is arguments that cast naysayers in a negative light, previously debunked evidence, non-sequitors like experiments with CO2 in the lab (this goes back forever, before I was in University, nobody has argued with that experiment, it just isn't relevant), etc. I think it was McKitrick (sp?) who said somewhere that he found that every single argument or set of data that was presented by the pro AGW crowd, when peeled back layer by layer either ended up with nothing or something demonstrably false. That has been my experience. None of the people on this page or elsewhere has presented evidence of anything that supports AGW or demonstrates bad faith on the part of people like me. There is an 'opportunity cost' for taking premature action on the unproven chain mentioned above. A part of that cost will cause people in the third world to have to bury their children. That is neither a metaphor nor is it hyperbole. They are burying them now and more will perish as we allocate resources to managing the brokering of carbon credits that could have been spent on clean water, medicine, education and industrialization in the third world. I am a dad and I truly feel for those people. If we must, to save the many, sacrifice the few, then so be it. It would be a bitter pill, but I can face up to it. What I can't abide is the notion that carnage and tragedy will result from knee-jerk public policy actions based on very shaky evidence.
Though prickly, I don't think I have targeted anybody's person. I have disagreed with some of their utterances and actions. In the case of suppressing Climategate and the endless juvenile sophistry that passes for arguments in favor of AGW alarmism, I find it hard to bite my tongue. Believe me, I think that whether this is a road to hell paved with good intentions or not, it is still a road to hell. It is easy to step off of this road and strike a better course and I dearly wish the community at WP would do so.
I do, actually, assume good faith on the part of some (maybe most or all, who knows?) of the pro AGW people. I confess that part of my apathy to the AGW nonsense was a naive notion that the ends justified the means. That is, I have never thought there was a scrap of evidence that CO2 was anything but net beneficial, but since it mobilized people to clean up otherwise (because even though CO2 is not a pollutant, plenty of other things clearly are), I looked the other way. What, I thought, is the harm in it? Who cares if they do the right thing for the wrong reasons? Sadly, it is with that line of thinking that I joined you on the road to hell.
Perhaps like you, I feel a duty to speak up because the issue is important. I think this is, broadly, an important issue outside of WP. However, it is inside that concerns me here. Regardless of who is good, who is bad, who is right and who is wrong, the net effect of the warring is detrimental to WP, and as I mentioned before the most egregious example of this is the ridiculous situation where there is, effectively, no real article on Climategate. It should make Wikipedians blush. DeepNorth ( talk) 04:28, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Oh yeah -- likely tl;dr, but that may be what is wrong with this whole thing. Maybe if people had more tenacity for reading and cogitating on things there would not be so much disagreement here.
Since you are discussing the article name, on 17 February, 2010, there was an attempt to have "hacking" removed from the title Climatic Research Unit hacking incident. 27 people supported the change and 8 opposed it. Therefore, the name change failed. Normally, I would have thought that 77% would have been considered a pass. This is one of the reasons that some people claim that there is a cabal. BTW, there is still heated discussion of the term "hacked". Q Science ( talk) 09:52, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
The Climategate fiasco on WP has overflowed to JW's talk page. JW expressed puzzlement at the strange title masking Climategate and even the opinion (with which many concur) that it should be called Climategate as per WP policy. People came out of the woodwork to express their displeasure with things. They provided diffs of edits to show how the climate articles have been injured. Clearly, there is more than a little controvery here. So ... somebody figured it was time to remove the tag saying the neutrality of the fake Climategate page is in dispute. As far as anyone looking for Climategate on WP is concerned, it is *not* called Climategate. It is called the Climatic Research Unit hacking incident. Apparently, it involves primarily a department at school, was a confirmed hacking and was merely an 'incident' at a moment in time. That is apparently what is fair and germane to say about the thing the rest of the world calls Climategate. Hence, here at WP, we present the article as if it has all been agreed upon and there is no effective dissent with respect to that point of view. I dissent and I think that both the title and the article itself are grotesque stains upon the reputation of Wikipedia as a reasonable source of information.
The above removes the tag from (what should be Climategate) that says the neutrality is in dispute. The person who did this added the following summary: "(Rm POV tag. There is no more neutral title than this and I don't see any disputed material.)"
It should be noted that the neutrality of that title *and* the content of that article is not only in dispute, it is POV by any definition on its face. The tag should never have been removed. This is the second time I have noticed this happen to this article. There are plenty of people with a less than neutral point of view who are watching this article constantly. I wonder how long it will take for the POV tag to go back up and who will do it. DeepNorth ( talk) 14:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 50 | ← | Archive 53 | Archive 54 | Archive 55 | Archive 56 | Archive 57 | → | Archive 60 |
When are they going to be implemented? Constructive criticism ( talk) 13:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I spoke to staff (specifically Erik Moeller) when I was in SF for the board meeting, and I got a very promising update at that time. Rather than risk saying something inaccurate, I'll show Erik this post and ask him to make an update here. In the meantime, the labs server is likely the best place to go for the absolute latest information.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 13:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
There is a collaboration proposal at OpenNASA that suggests that NASA collaborate with Wikimedia project including Wikipedia.
There is also a NASA collaboration task force at the strategy wiki as well as a NASApedia proposal.
Would you support a collaboration between NASA and Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and the Commons? Smallman12q ( talk) 00:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Hi, Jimmy. Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/RfC went live today. While designed by original proposer Uncle G as a 'Reverse Rfa' (see Wikipedia:'Community de-adminship' - The original Uncle G proposal for reference), the current proposal has undergone revision and is no longer termed as such.
I, and I believe much of the community at large, would welcome your thoughts. Thanks, Jusdafax 01:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Did wikipedia have the monobook skin when it started? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.230.86 ( talk) 18:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
I am having a very serious problem with a group of editors, including some arbitrators and admins, attacking me with blatant lies and distortion in an effort to ban me. Please can you help Jimbo? I admit I'm not perfect, but I have always edited in good faith and I don't believe that people should be able to make blatant distortions about what I have and haven't said. This is a civility and BLP violation, even if I am anonymous for now. Also, we shouldn't allow anyone to try to censor people they disagree with by hounding, harassing, intimidating and abusing processes with misrepresentations to get rid of them. ChildofMidnight ( talk) 04:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Oh dear, more flame bait, but I could not help a wry smile at this:
Did Larry have a previous account or did he "co-found" Wikipedia six months after it started? Guy ( Help!) 22:21, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Dear Jimbo,
Do you regard Wikipedia as vulnerable to astroturfing by pharmaceutical companies? Perhaps I haven't looked in the right places, but I've seen surprisingly little if any on-wiki discussion about this very real danger, and how to recognize and prevent it. When I saw an Arbitration in progress about pages related to Transcendental Meditation, I voiced this concern publicly for the first time, commenting as an outside editor.
No matter how the TM arbitration is resolved, I hope that you and others who oversee Wikipedia consider these dangers very, very, very seriously over the long run, and find ways to protect Wikipedia against damage. It would be sad if Wikipedia was infiltrated and effectively colonized by this industry, which Marcia Angell, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, calls an "eight-hundred pound gorilla that… is used to doing pretty much what it wants to do", and that in highly sophisticated ways "uses its immense wealth and power to co-opt nearly every institution that might stand in its way", p3,x.
Here is a link to the arbitration page evidence I provided (and here is a diff). Thank you for all you've done for Wikipedia. It is still young, and I do hope it endures in as much of its glory as possible. Precautionary 00:24, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Hi. Very sorry to disturb.
There is a Welsh film that I enjoy. In fact, I helped set up the IMDb page for the film back in 1999 when I was a major IMDb researcher, one of their "Top 200". The film is called Hedd Wyn.
Yesterday I noticed 2 errors on the Welsh WP page for the (Welsh language) film. I presumed this to be the result of (Welsh nationalist) vandalism. I corrected the errors, bringing the page into line with both the IMDb and English WP.
The Welsh sys admin has now blocked my editing privileges for 1 year, and restored both errors to the WP page.
Is that a reasonable outcome?
Sincerely, Varlaam ( talk) 21:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Hello Mr Wales,
I am writing this to say a little bit of my appreciation to you for founding and setting this wonderful project (perhaps one of the most influentual projects of the 21st century). Wikipedia has helped me a lot with my school work and it has also expanded my knowledge of the world around me. I can't really imagine (or has ever imagined), what this world would be like with Wikipedia. I am a newbie myself with editing, even though I have using the site for so long. I hope that Wikipedia will grow to become the largest website-in term of capacity-in the world (I don't think it's not far off now :)). All in all, I just want to express to you my appreciation of the work you have done, just nearly a decade ago, and I hope that Wikipedians and the website itself, will strive for the better in the near future, and for decades to come.
Thank you very much, Mr Wales.
Sp33dyphil 08:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello, Jimbo Wales! I have nominated you for bureaucratship. It would be nice if you would accept the nomination and answer the questions on the nomination page. Thank you and happy editing. NerdyScienceDude :) ( ✉ click to talk • my edits • sign) 06:19, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I've been away a few days in a place with limited Internet access (London! haha!) Actually my computer died and I'm just now coming back online.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 11:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd like us to conduct a poll from now until Saturday, regarding whether we should ask the Foundation to simply turn on flagged revs in the form that the Germans use it, until such time as they finish the version we've reached consensus on here, but which is constantly delayed.
User_talk:Jimbo Wales/poll - please just leave it here rather than turning it into a formal RfC or request - this is just a poll to gauge how we feel about it.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 11:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I am sorry - am I missing something? Casliber ( talk · contribs) 20:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I was participating in your poll and came across a line that scared me – someone claimed that the foundation (1) has no idea how much longer it will take and (2) has no intention of setting a deadline for itself. So I pose this question to you: Instead of being one of the people that continues to complain about how flagged revisions aren't here yet, why not instead see what initiative I can take to resolve the problem. There's two sides to this: On the one hand, to my understanding, everything Wikimedia is open source and thus the current (partial) implementation is as well, so I theoretically should be able to just go in and start hacking away on my own local copy to my heart's content, then propose patches and get them integrated. On the other hand, I assume WMF is taking this as a high priority and thus (a) may not want the additional help due to the increased load of reviewing changes and potential for security issues, and (b) may wish to avoid conflicts as they have more time than the prospective volunteers. So I pose this question to you: Is there any way the community can help out with getting this finalized? Perhaps a team of volunteers to contribute to the source and get us on our way finally? Thanks for any insight, Shirik ( Questions or Comments?) 21:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
“ | adding manpower to a late software project makes it later | ” |
It's been true for decades. Sorry. Jack Merridew 23:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
If anyone still doubts that something should be done about BLPs ASAP, you should see the latest piece at On Wikipedia. Turns out they put a defamatory, hoax BLP through DYK yesterday. It was on the main page for six hours, during half of which it accused the subject of murder. HH Nobody ( talk) 02:29, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar | ||
For founding Wikipedia. That really is a brilliant idea. NerdyScienceDude :) ( ✉ click to talk • my edits • sign) 04:46, 3 March 2010 (UTC) |
I have to once again start discussion about User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 53#Contradicting informations between English and Czech Wikipedia. Jimbo asked for a discussion here and I asked of Czech editors to come here to join discussion. I want to stress the key point that discussion should dealt only with this content/editorial issues to resolve it, since those are big problem. What can be done when English and Czech Wikipedia contains contradicting informations and nobody listens. The English Wikipedia states that homosexuality was remeved from the lists of disorders on the ground of recognizing the scientific evidence. This fact supported by the most reliable sources available to the topic. The Czech Wikipedia states that homosexuality was removed solely because of the political reasons. This statement is supported by one unfounded opinion of the author of scripts. Yes, you read right! It is absurd, isn't it? I believe this is a serious problem, but nobody has listened for several months and the article is blocked to prevent correct that. Nothing can be done. The Wikipedia policies about reliable sources and exceptional claims have been ignored there for many months. Is there any chance to set right propaganda of ultraconservative editors and inactive admins there? I believe CS Wikipedia should present facts in similar fashion as the EN Wikipedia, since it is not Conservapedia. Moreover, the Czech Wikipedia editors violates undue weight and reliable sources policies by presenting fringe sources even if those was explicitly prohibited to use in the English Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2009_August_8#Contradicting_informations_between_en_and_cs_Wikipedia didn't help to solve the issue. All mechanism including Czech Arbitrary Comitee has failed so far. These issues hurt Wikipedia project. Who is responsible and who failed here? -- Destinero ( talk) 07:52, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Just a short comment from me, as I was an ArbCom member (my term ended at the beginning of this year). The story had two sides for the arbitration committee:
The arbitration case is not closed yet, so the decisions are not valid yet. With this explanation I hope that You, Mr. Wales, will understand that Czech Wikipedia ArbCom did not fail in this case. I do not want to argue with any of my colleagues' preceding comments, but You can asume that I do not agree with several of them (eg. for the topic title that "nobody care of it there" - as I really had to care of it a lot in the ArbCom member post). With regards, -- Okino ( talk) 04:51, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
“ | The reason was not to include medical, as homosexulalita man brings many difficulties that it is medically caused by handicap, but rather a political sexual desire to eliminate alleged discrimination against homosexuals society justifies by pointing to their "sense of normality as well." [14 ] | ” |
“ | Is Homosexuality a Mental Illness or Emotional Problem?
No. Psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals agree that homosexuality is not an illness, a mental disorder, or an emotional problem. More than 35 years of objective, well-designed scientific research has shown that homosexuality, in and itself, is not associated with mental disorders or emotional or social problems. Homosexuality was once thought to be a mental illness because mental health professionals and society had biased information. In the past, the studies of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people involved only those in therapy, thus biasing the resulting conclusions. When researchers examined data about such people who were not in therapy, the idea that homosexuality was a mental illness was quickly found to be untrue. ... |
” |
Phoenix, sorry, but when you say A, you should say B as well to keep other informed right. Crazy seems to be, that Destinero did not searched for consensus to unblock the article (in time when he was not blocked - and Destinero was blocked 190 of last 365 days = (52%) according to his blocking record, what is unbeliveable), that's why the article is still locked. Last month there is some remarkable move, when Destinero proposed text to Brzek source, but finally colapsed by Destineros personal attacks and trolling, when he is blocked again. Until Destinero is blocked, it is possible that author of the Brzek source (what I'm not) will agree with Destinero on proposed formulation and article will be unlocked. Most strange is, that in one discussion Destinero is proposing text to Brzek source to unlock the article, on the other discussion in the same time he is writing, the source should be removed, so I have serious doubts about what Destinero really wants. Consider the size of Czech Wikipedia community and consider that very few editors was working on the article. Now, probably, nobody wants to continue until problem is solved, otherwise can easily happen, that they will loose their work, so I personally feel Destineros activity and behavior style as the main obstacle to unlock mentioned article.-- DeeMusil ( talk) 13:04, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
This is NOT REDFLAG. In arbitrary with Destinero, I did serve with dozens of sources, which says the same. Claim it is about redflag is simply false. Actually, I always said, that such information should be formulated neutrally, A says B about C, so in that case no red flag is even possible. Additionaly, CZ wikipedia rules differs a bit (are not such complex), so there is no red flag at all on CZW. Futhermore, Destinero completely IGNOREs recommendation Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial#Moral_and_political_points_of_view which exist on both EN and CZ wikipedia. // Destinero do you want to move this discussion into the article (where some of your claims was already widely discussed, for example EN->CZ rules usage) or you want to bother Jimbo Wales with whole your culture war agenda again? -- DeeMusil ( talk) 16:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC) Actually, when speaking about en rules, Destineros case is in WP:CONFLICT of interests, as he is promoting his own group on both CZ and EN Wikipedia, but he did not follow the recommendations there.-- DeeMusil ( talk) 07:35, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Destinero, you did mishmash 3 different things together, so please dont do it. Lets make difference between article/fact, discussion/opinion and personal blog/thoughts or belives.
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive600#User Destinero - personal attack Thank you. -- Destinero ( talk) 20:19, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
MR. Wales A few months ago I spoke with you about the need for reform in our "ruling system" . The last day is a clear example of how corupt our ARBCOM process has become. User:Brews ohare was blocked under the thinnest and flimsy excuse he violated his topic ban[ [10]]. This was done without a clearcut consesus and was initiated by someone who review for less then ten minutes. Brews then filed a unblock request, this went unreviewed (declined/approved) for 6 days. After this a Admin took the steps to not only explain himself but made the situation right. PLease take a few moments and read this examplary statement behind TruSilver's actions [ [11]]. To have any admin take the time to put their reasons down in a respectful way is amazing, it rarely happens. But this honor of character didn't bring him the honor it should, instead he is met with threats and intimidation that if he doesn't reverse his actions he would be desysopped and sent to Arbcom. Why in the world would we punish right and good administrative actions? We should encourage this kind of review on all cases, Brews situation has detoriated from stop of the disruption to full blown wiki corruption of process. Consider one rationale from the arbcom case [ [12]], in this one argument is that trusilver didn't have Administrator support only editors, when did wikipedia decisions have to be made by Administrators. This is a great example of the heirachy of the Catholic Church in the medieval ages or the rule of a hostile aristocracy that demeans the common contributor. Please help, we welcome new editors but treat long standing ones like crap, somethign is wrong here. Hell In A Bucket ( talk) 16:11, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Guy, do you happen to have a pointer to that sarcastic essay? I'd love to read it. Cheers - DVdm ( talk) 17:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
And some would call that hubris. Another great example of not replying to the issue and attacking the person. Hell In A Bucket ( talk) 18:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Guy your petty threats do not scare me. I contribute to this encyclopedia in a meaningful way. If you think there needs to be more scrutiny on me for calling out cronies, falsehoods and inequities go for it. You would be one of many that has, they've all lost though. Until then please omit all references on what may happen Hell In A Bucket ( talk) 22:27, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
If ever there was a constitutional crisis on wikipedia, this is it, [14]. And it's interesting to note how editor Guy has stepped forward in an attempt to whitewash the situation. Guy has pulled out all the standard bureaucratic stops. One of these is to tell 'Hell in a Bucket' that appealing to Jimbo won't work. Well maybe it won't. But it certainly won't work if he doesn't appeal to Jimbo. Another classic stop was to denigrate Brews ohare by referring to his weird theory. To the best of my knowledge, Brews ohare doesn't have a weird theory, and I have been editing with Brews closely since he started wikipedia. The idea of Brews's weird theory is a plain lie. Then Guy pulled that other extraordinary classic about the idea that those who speak up in favour of Brews are the ones who are damaging him. This is arrant nonsense. The ones who are damaging Brews are the ones who are blocking him, banning him, and bearing false witness against him. A typical ARBCOM trial is based on the principle of identifying the villains at the beginning of the trial and putting them on the pillory. Any attempt by the accused to defend themselves will be seen as 'disruptive behaviour', and will be used to justify the final sanctions. That is how ARBCOM works. Often there are 'novi acti interventi' present at the ARBCOM trial, such as editor Ncmvocalist who trot around the courtroom giving back kicks to the accused and provoking reactions which are then used against them.
This latest problem surrounding administrator Trusilver is a classic example of the failure of the entire system. A total constitutional review is necessary and separation of powers is needed. A newly constituted arbitration committee needs to be established as a higher tier for the sole purpose of desysoping admins who abuse their tools. All law an order issues on wikipedia can be adequately dealt with by admins with a maximum three month block power. And I would hope that any new arbitration committee would not be needing a logo with a bunch of bananas on it. David Tombe ( talk) 03:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Jehochman and Finell, No. This is different. This gets to the very issue of two branches of the law hiding behind each other and promoting damage, in the absence of any adequate appeal procedure. This is a constitutional crisis if ever there was, and a long standing administrator Trusilver is on the pillory right now. Of course Wikipedia has a constitution. Just like the United Kingdom it may not have a written constitution, but it still has a constitution. And the monarch needs to step in right now. David Tombe ( talk) 04:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Tarc, Your statement that the unblock was beyond the pale reflects the very attitude that will eventually destroy wikipedia, unless the constitution is urgently attended to. What has set the alarm bells ringing for you in this case, is the fact that a serious challenge has been launched against the abuses of power that have been ongoing within the present system. When ARBCOM starts to demonstrate that they are indulging in power for power's sake, then it's time to close them down. I have no doubt that there will be many toadies who will support the current system for the sole purpose of gaining favour and protection from those who are abusing power. This vicious cycle needs to be removed at the roots. David Tombe ( talk) 05:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
No Guy, You are being told that wikipedia will be destroyed by corruption. At the moment, the arbitrators are indulging in a display of Chutzpah by willfully ignoring all the underlying facts in the Brews ohare case, while focusing exclusively on the lie that Trusilver has broken a rule. Trusilver has not broken any rule. Corruption has thrived in a web of bureaucracy, and this latest episode is an attempt by ARBCOM to lock the door on all the wrongdoings and keep the evil intact, by hiding behind the lie that Trusilver has broken a rule. David Tombe ( talk) 07:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Guy, Was that your best poker face? You didn't seriously think that I thought that you were going to acknowledge it, did you?. If I asked a government official on TV if he believed that the administration that he worked for was corrupt, do you think that he would say 'yes'? No he wouldn't. He would put on his best poker face and say 'no, there is absolutely no corruption whatsoever, and I laugh in the face of whoever should say otherwise'. Matters of whether or not there is corruption are ultimately for outsiders to decide upon. David Tombe ( talk) 09:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Johnuniq, You have missed the point here entirely. Trusilver did not overturn an ARBCOM sanction. He overturned what he considered to be a faulty interpretation of an ARBCOM sanction by another administrator. Theoretically there is absolutely no basis for ARBCOM to feel slighted over this matter, but for irrational reasons, they obviously do feel slighted. There is something very wrong with a system in which sanctity is given to the first administrator to get involved in any particular arbitration enforcement issue. There are many strands in all of this which need to be examined, but this particular strand seems to be the one that you are missing. When a government minister introduces secondary legislation under powers granted to him by primary legislation, that secondary legislation is subject to being overturned by either a constitutional court or a judicial review process if it is felt that the minister did not interpret his powers, as stated in the primary legislation, correctly. Parliament or congress does not feel slighted if a judicial review overturns a ministers secondary legislation. But no system would ever allow the interpretation of powers bestowed by primary legislation to become the sole preserve of whichever minister got there first. That is what is wrong here. That is what needs to be looked into. And JzG, I'm afraid that I've got nothing more to say to you beyond the fact that I've put you down for the Victor Hugo's Inspector Javert remedial course along with some others. David Tombe ( talk) 12:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Tarc, Your statement "I have no stake or interest in the original block" leaves me with no choice but to put you down for the remedial Victor Hugo course which DVdm has also volunteered to join. Inspector Javert had no interest whatsoever in the background story of any case. As far as Javert was concerned, once you crossed that line that was drawn by the secular law, you were a criminal and an outcast forevermore. And on that basis, he hounded and destroyed a good man Jean Valjean who had transgressed in a minor way at a time of great hardship. Later in life when Inspector Javert realized the folly of his ways, he couldn't cope with the change since he had been obsessed with the letter of the law all his life. So in a state of mental anguish, he threw himself into the River Seine. David Tombe ( talk) 16:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
That's good Tarc. So you've got it then. And so you will see that Trusilver was acting for the higher good, whereas Sandstein was acting like Inspector Javert. If Trusilver gets reprimanded as a result of his actions, it will be a bad day for wikipedia. Jimbo, never give up the master key. And Dvdm, it's a Tuesday where I am. David Tombe ( talk) 17:11, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Tarc: By eliminating any consideration of the original block, you have eliminated consideration of the type of block it is: a sanctions related block, or a garden variety block. Depending upon which it is, the rules are different. If it is a garden variety block, there is simply no argument that Trusilver was within his purview. In the opposite case, I'd still argue he was right, even though the rules differ, because Sandstein failed to follow protocol, and violated the terms stated by the sanctions against me requiring prior warning. Brews ohare ( talk) 20:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Here is a template proposed to attach to blocks based upon violation of a sanction. The idea is to advise an admin passing by that it is off-limits to overturn the block on their own initiative. It includes this language:
This wording is transferred from the so-called
2008 decision. I personally view the so-called
2008 decision as an illegal power grab by administrators disenfranchising the WP community at large, and imposing a vague ruling that can be interpreted and administered only by a certain elite group (the "Committee") with no review of their objectivity and judgment. In particular, this group conceivably might apply this ruling even though no sanction has been violated, because it is up to them to decide whether or not that has happened. Any administrator of the view that an error has occurred now must appeal to the "Committee", and not to the WP community at large.
It also is their prerogative to judge whether a so-called "clear, substantial, and active community consensus" exists, and no particulars are provided for making that judgment. For example, is "substantial" consensus a simple majority, a 2/3 majority, or is one administrator equal to 10 ordinary WP editors? When is consensus "clear"? If three oppose, two are in favor and 30 undecided, is that "unclear"? Is an editor "active" that never writes an article, or never holds office, or shows up just for this vote? Are decisions subject to open vote and argument, or just "Committee" edict?
What is a "written authorization"? How is it arrived at? Is it a majority vote of the "Committee" on a WP page like a WP:A/R report with community input?
What "Committee" is this (the "Sanctions Administration Committee"? The ArbCom?), and how are its members selected? How are its decisions appealed?
The adoption of a vague ruling such as the 2008 decision is not OK and has very far reaching ramifications for the entire operation of WP. Brews ohare ( talk) 22:03, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
(deindent)Experts who work in academia usually have a point of view to advertise. So what. There's nothing wrong with that, so long as the opponents are welcome too, and everyone adheres to NPOV. I don't believe that too many experts was ever a problem.
The central problem is that it is very difficult to protect technical content, because there is no requirement that a person who verifies it understands it, and the requirements of sourcing are interpreted by many people to exclude mathematical prose altogether. You can't write equations or proofs without doing what looks like OR to administratively minded editors. You have to check the equations against each other, you need to make sure that each one follows from the last, and you have to make sure that the imagery in the equations flows smoothly, just like in a novel.
Checking technical presentations requires reading the sources with understanding, and checking mathematics for accuracy, and for parallels with the source. These are nontrivial tasks, equivalent to proofreading for non-mathematical texts. Doing them is orders of magnitude more difficult than the analogous process for non-mathematical texts.
Instead of doing this, it is much easier to delete mathematical content on OR grounds. That's what happened at infraparticle. I won't mention other pages so that they won't be attacked. Likebox ( talk) 22:00, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Jimmy, if you are unaware of this, I'd like to bring it to your attention. If I don't, the press will.
I've opened a review at: WP:ANI#Mike Handel - blatant negative BLP hoax made DYK!.
Really, really, troubling. If action is not taken, the next one won't be a hoax.-- Scott Mac (Doc) 13:14, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
When you talk about support, people who post in the BLP noticeboard find little or no admin support because admins read AN and ANI and not much else. Sole Soul ( talk) 16:19, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
It isn't just WP:PROF and WP:ATHLETE that need tightening up. There are a couple other categories we tend to turn a blind eye to, such as Category:Internet personalities, or seiyu with long lists of credits but no actual third party biographical coverage. We also frequently look the other way for a musician who has an obscure charting album but lacks biographical coverage. JBsupreme ( talk) 20:15, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
I think this is a symptom of a fundamental mistake in the way we approach WP:V. It shouldn't be about articles being verifiable, but about articles being verified. Eventualism was a fine philosophy when we had millions of articles to write, but is not so hot when you have millions of articles already written an in desperate need of attention. "It'll be fixed eventually" was a reasonable mantra when we were just starting, but we're there now and it's time to fix. — Coren (talk) 20:43, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Even by the standards of this page, the noise-to-signal ratio of the current version is extraordinarily high. The page is also unusually long, with unusually long threads (and these have the highest noise content). Does anyone keep statistics on these things? Has anyone looked for a correlation with the full moon?— Finell 04:29, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo,
I would like to highlight that March is Women's History Month in the United States (and maybe other places, too.) And March 8 is International Women's Day.
National Women's History Project's 2010 Theme is "Writing Women Back into History" and I think that is a good reminder that Wikipedia English has quite a few gaps in our coverage of topics including gaps in our coverage of women.
For example's many articles about woman's role in military history are missing.
It would be great if you created or expanded one or two biographies about women this month. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 07:25, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Hi, about the poll, your close seems to suggest you'd like the opinion of as many users as possible. I was thinking that 4-5 days seems very short, as users are not always quick to comment even if aware of a poll, because they want to think about it a bit further, esp. when they didn't participate in prior discussions (which were almost a year ago). Furthermore, as you can see, this kind of polls has a tendency to attract many supports in the beginning then much more opposes than initially. I would suggest for the next poll a duration of 2 weeks and much more advertizing, otherwise in my opinion, it wouldn't be representative enough of the community. Cenarium ( talk) 15:31, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello Mr Wales,
I am writing this to say a little bit of my appreciation to you for founding and setting this wonderful project (perhaps one of the most influentual projects of the 21st century). Wikipedia has helped me a lot with my school work and it has also expanded my knowledge of the world around me. I can't really imagine (or has ever imagined), what this world would be like with Wikipedia. I am a newbie myself with editing, even though I have using the site for so long. I hope that Wikipedia will grow to become the largest website-in term of capacity-in the world (I don't think it's not far off now :)). All in all, I just want to express to you my appreciation of the work you have done, just nearly a decade ago, and I hope that Wikipedians and the website itself, will strive for the better in the near future, and for decades to come.
Thank you very much, Mr Wales.
Sp33dyphil 04:59, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Since you founded Wikipedia, maybe you can answer this question:
Why are we called "Users" here? After all, we don't "Use" Wikipedia, we edit it.-- RM ( Be my friend) 16:49, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
moved here from Talk:Jimmy Wales Tarc ( talk) 17:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello Jimmy!
Wikipedia article calls for a new tab called for example "narrative", because there is the other side of the coin: the kind of information one cannot find any references, as it is more like self-educated knowledge.
For example aerodynamics: airfoil. One could write a long article about the topic but he/she is still inable to explain the idea "by heart" because there is no references - except if he/she writes a scientific article about the explanation of airfoil" before writing the "explanative" wikiarticle.
the new tab could be placed in between tabs "article" and "discussion" and included in every wikiarticle. it could contain completely different point of view than the main article or a narrative where the ideas in the main article are explained 'by own words'.
thanks for reading. -- 86.50.34.133 ( talk) 10:05, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Dear Mr. Wales, I am sorry to disturb You and to use this channel, but it seems to me that some bits of our communication have been lost on their way and I am looking for some urgent information. So I have recently sent You another e-mail and I wait for Your kind e-mail answer. With many thanks, writing for Wikimedia Czech Republic Okino ( talk) 19:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your contributions to the encyclopedia! In case you are not already aware, an article to which you have recently contributed,
Richard Lindzen, is on
article probation. A detailed description of the terms of article probation may be found at
Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation. Also note that the terms of some article probations extend to related articles and their associated talk pages.
The above is a
templated message. Please accept it as a routine friendly notice, not as a claim that there is any problem with your edits. Thank you. --
TS 18:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Several editors (
and I) tried to do something about it.
An admin, with a WikiProject LGBT studies article alert on the top of his talk page,
canvassed at the LGBT cabal -- and we were beat down by mobocracy.
[15]
It was disappointing seeing both editors and admins
actively fighting for slagging Miss Prejean any way they could, including disclosing private facts. Most of what was put into the 'article', was put in there to harm Miss Prejean's reputation.
A casual look at the relatively low quality references is telling.
Most of the 'encyclopedia article' is about the fact that Miss Prejean said she believed marriage was between a man and a woman, when asked, and the resulting fallout. There is very little else in the article.
Interestingly enough, the article references
another article that's specifically for that -- so there are two articles about it.
We were unable to swim against the tide of
thinly masked hatred.
I ultimately posted my impression of the reality of Wikipedia's attack coatracks dressed up like biographies of living persons
here. --
Rico 23:06, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
This vandalous edit went by unnoticed for 90 minutes. Who knows how longer had I not vigorously pursued my watchlist. Remind me again why we haven't already enabled flagged revisions for BLP articles? JBsupreme ( talk) 05:57, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
It may be this talk page :) DeepNorth ( talk) 04:56, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Mr. Wales,
For the last year I have struggled in vain to balance the abuses of the rights of living climate scientists the world over to have a fair, neutral, accurate biography. A year later, it's safe to say that I have achieved practically nothing, and the reason I have achieved nothing is that your gang of mostly immature, often 20-something editors and admins have closed ranks in nearly all instances to obstruct and thwart all progress.
I am not the first to notice this. Lawrence Solomon has, of course, written about it in the Financial Post in Canada a few times, and has blamed the situation personally on two of your editors, William M. Connolley and Kim D. Petersen. I disagree with Lawrence Solomon in blaming these two editors. You created Wikipedia. You allow your editors to do what they do. You are the founder and by remaining neutral on flagrant NPOV and BLP abuses, you are responsible, and you should answer to the public.
Does the public understand that millions of dollars of charitable donations are spent by Wikipedia in funding the smearing of the professional reputations of great living scientists such as Richard Lindzen, Roger Pielke Sr., or S. Fred Singer each day?
I have spent countless hours of the last year defending in vain the biographies of Richard Lindzen, Ross McKitrick, Garth Paltridge, Roger A. Pielke, and Lawrence Solomon. I have even helped out the gang in defending the likes of Rajendra K. Pachauri and Michael E. Mann occasionally. I've cleaned up Gavin Schmidt's and Raymond Pierrehumbert's biographies, but this has does little to soften the environmentalist, agenda-driven hatred your editors feel towards anyone perceived to be skeptical of anthropogenic climate change.
In the whole year, I have not received a single word of support from anyone in the Wikipedia Foundation, and practically none of the Wikipedia admins have ever helped either. A few skeptics in the admin community have helped, a bit, but most of those apparently see the fight as futile, and no one who simply cares about fairness and policy has ever stepped in to help. This is wrong, I realise. An editor, ATren, did step in, but he seems to have been finally burnt out and driven away now. Alex Harvey ( talk) 15:35, 9 March 2010 (UTC) Meanwhile, my own talk page, unedited since I joined, testifies to the bullying I have received, instead, from your editors.
I should like to let you know that I have in principle approval to write up a first hand, insider's account of what goes on here, at the blog of a very prominent climate scientist. If published, my piece will not be written off as the rantings of a denier, because the scientist is well respected by the mainstream media, and he is not a skeptic. It will largely serve to independently confirm the observations of Mr. Solomon. Except, as I say, I disagree with Lawrence Solomon on one important point: I believe that you are personally responsible; it is wrong to blame all of this on the actions of two well-intentioned, fanatical volunteers.
Without an effective leader, it is my serious view that Wikipedia needs to be forcibly taken over either commercially or by government, for the good of the people. I will be leaving Wikipedia, and advocating for such a change, shortly. If, on the other hand, you would like to help me fix the BLPs of climate scientists, there is a small amount of energy left in me to continue.
Regards,
Alex Harvey ( talk) 07:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
By which company or government does Alex propose Wikipedia be taken over? Tasty monster ( TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 13:26, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Mr. Wales, if you are concerned that I could quote you out of context, would you clarify the context of that remark then? I mean specifically, "...whenever I have checked articles in the past, I have been mostly unimpressed with the claims that [the climate change BLP] articles are particularly problematic." Does it mean that you think it's fine for amateurs to write up sloppy, inaccurate biographies of living people and get it all wrong? Or do you mean that it's not fine, but it's just that other Wikipedia BLPs are even worse? (I wouldn't know about this, as I've focused exclusively on the climate change BLP pages.) Or do you mean that you think Wikipedia has largely got the climate change BLPs right? Alex Harvey ( talk) 15:18, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Jimbo, as a previously uninvolved editor, I believe that I can shed some light on the situation. About 3 months ago, I began editing our
Climatic Research Unit hacking incident article and inadvertently got caught up in a
battle between two groups of warring factions. From what I've been able to gather, this battle has been going on for years. Both sides routinely ignore our policies on
neutrality,
verifiability and
biographies of living people and only seek to include content that advances their POV while simultaneously excluding content that is against their POV. I attempted in good faith to improve our
Climatic Research Unit hacking incident article's
neutrality, and was routinely attacked and harassed by both warring factions. In my short time in this topic space, this war has been brought up at several venues including most of our noticeboards (BLP, OR, RS, NPOV, FRINGE, COI, Admin), not to mention
WP:Mediation Cabal and ArbCom but the community has consistently failed to resolve the situation. The issue is currently at
WP:General_sanctions/Climate_change_probation where it also remains unresolved.
Neither side seems to care about the harm that they're doing to Wikipedia. My personal feeling is that editors who care more about advancing an agenda (rather than building an encyclopedia) are not an asset to this project but a detriment.
In any case, I gave up in frustration and no longer edit any articles in this topic space. Since someone else has brought the problem to your attention, I thought a neutral voice might help understand the situation.
BTW, sorry for the lack of diffs. The edit histories of all these pages are too long and complicated to sift through. A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 17:03, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Dear Jimbo, As a newcomer to Wikipedia I have followed these two factions battle it out on climate change issues since November last year. I completely support 'A Quest For Knowledge' frustration.
Here is my suggestions: Temporarily remove ALL Wikipedia pages related to Climate science as they now stand for a period of 6 months. If the kids are not playing nice then take the toys away! This will hopefully discourage the fanatical elements on both sides of the debate. 130.232.214.10 ( talk) 17:30, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
All of the above boils down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT, occasioned by frustration that an article has not been slanted in favour of one POV. -- ChrisO ( talk) 19:43, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Mr. Wales:
Those saying that a cabal of extremely POV editors have hijacked the Climate articles are completely correct. Those denying it appear to be members of that very Cabal. They are assiduous in their pursuit of having WP represent their point of view and only their point of view. They are so determined that they hunt down any entry like this and jump on it to make sure it does not interfere with the party line. I think it would be instructive to follow a few conversations by those saying that people complaining to you are somehow fringe elements crying foul because their minority opinion is being trampled. They are correct that the complainers are (at any given point in time) in the minority. However, that is because they drive off and even have banned anyone with the temerity to voice a contrary opinion. You *will* see that (as above with Alex Harvey) eventually after many (many, many) incidents of baiting, badgering, bullying, etc, that people get frustrated and become intemperate. Alex should not have been so heavy handed, but he was surely driven to it by a level of frustration that no ordinary person would bear. Certainly, the ones doing the systematic baiting and banning show not nearly the temperance of their victims.
You should not be expected to personally intervene, even in things as shocking as this. However, I implore you to charge somebody with selecting a group of truly neutral editors with a background that allows them to judge a little science and logic to review all of the Climate articles (particularly the 'memory-holed' missing article on Climategate) and help to bring them back to some semblance of reality.
Like others, I took a stab at trying to cure the ills of the bogus thing attempting to make it appear that there is no such thing as Climategate. Like others, my work was quickly and surely sent to the memory hole. About two thirds of what I wrote has simply disappeared.
Here is something to ponder: those who have found that the Climate articles are POV and have attempted to make corrections have been bullied right out of Wikipedia -- many of them banned outright. Nobody, as far as I can tell, who has been a pro AGW POV pusher or sympathizer has been pushed out. There are a fair number of people who were baited and bullied out of the picture -- more, I would say, than the side that pushed them out. The side that pushed them out has the most annoying habit of saying that the majority supports their POV and pushing out anyone who disagrees. What is wrong with that picture?
Let's say, for the sake of argument that I am an egregious and disruptive POV pusher myself and/or a sock or whatever else they use to ride people out of town on a rail. Still, would you entertain what I feel is an idea that has some hope of restoring balance to this subject area and removing the terrible black eye that is the denial (ironic, no?) of the existence of Climategate? Here is my idea: anyone who has made more than a tiny number of edits to the body of Climate related articles, should recuse themselves or be recused forcibly from making any changes to these articles for a year. Any admin that is not clearly at arm's length from the subject should similarly be recused. There are a bunch of admins who clearly are involved and more who have participated in a way that makes them similarly unfit.
Allow the recused editors to help to identify the articles in question (there are a lot and about half should be removed IMO). Send the new admins and editors out on a mission to tag, hack, slash the obvious stuff and allow the clear interest in the community at large to bring new editors in to do the 'heavy lifting' of article re-write.
During this one-year hiatus, the WP community needs to find some way to prevent a long term campaign of subtle vandalism like this from happening again or at the least some effective and rapid mechanism for correcting it when it has been found out. This stain has existed in WP for years and the Climategate blot has existed for months and appears impossible to correct. Wikipedia in other languages generally have a proper 'Climategate' entry, for instance. I expect that is because they are not within reach of the community of gatekeepers that have hijacked the English version.
The above is an extreme prescriptive and this entire entry (my text included) is a cheeky intrusion on the time of someone in the public eye who is very busy. However, there appears to be no mechanism in place to allow an effective way to fix this and the problem, is severe. There is no question at all that the Climate articles have been manipulated by a group of editors with a clear point of view. There are even conflicts of interest that do not stop some editors. The articles reflect very badly on Wikipedia. They are inaccurate or misleading themselves and so taint what has become an import subject affecting the public. They also call into question the relative verity and fairness of the entire enterprise. If this subject area can be so thoroughly dominated, controlled and skewed in a way that decreases their quality, then why not others? There is no shortage of people in this world with axes to grind, of that you can be sure.
I *LOVE* this encyclopedia. It is a thing of great beauty, warts and all. It is one of my favorite things. Its system of governance (and/or lack thereof) has allowed it to grow and flourish in a spectacular way. I am sure you would be understandably reluctant to tinker with this formula for success. I am not asking you to intervene personally in the particulars, because I do not feel that would be appropriate. I am asking you to intervene to have trusted admins and editors bring order and balance to an area of Wikipedia, that despite its excellent systems of governance (and I particularly *like* the lack thereof part) has been injured by (perhaps well-meaning) zealots.
I believe there has been impropriety. However, I am not asking that you act on that assumption. I am asking you to act because whether it exists or not there is a strong appearance of impropriety and, even if it is only that, it is stain on this grand enterprise that should be and can be removed. Just fixing the appearance of a problem will increase trust and confidence in the work as a whole and at the very least there is very definitely the appearance of a problem. DeepNorth ( talk) 22:44, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
You wrote, among other things, that you "took a stab at trying to cure the ills of the bogus thing attempting to make it appear that there is no such thing as Climategate." Can you point me to more specifics? I just looked for the article, it is there, and does not seem to deny the existence of this incident at all. Not only does the event appear to be presented pretty comprehensively in the main article, we even have a separate article detailing the contents of the leaked emails: Climatic Research Unit documents. Now, I'm sure many complaints could be made about how this has been written about at various times. Yet, I don't think it is particularly helpful to wildly overstate the case, as you appear to have done. How does English Wikipedia's coverage of this incident differ from other language versions? Please be detailed.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 00:30, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Dear Mr. Wales, I am rather taken aback by your responses. I had supposed that you would either ignore me, or remain neutral, or have someone respond by proxy, or maybe say something that would weakly but without commitment acknowledge the problem. It was my hope, I must admit, although not my expectation, that you would actually take the matter seriously and investigate it before responding. I'll have to say that I didn't even consider that in the worst case you would get back in a few hours and just casually declare your sympathy with the editors who wrote these disgraceful climate change biographies. You say you don't want me to quote you out of context, but you said what you said. I have no intention of being unfair to you but the public has the right to know this. I realise that you're not a climate scientist and I can't expect you to already understand the full extent of the problem, but it seems inconceivable to me that you haven't looked at, say, S. Fred Singer's disgraceful article, after Lawrence Solomon has repeatedly pointed it out to you in the press. I just double-checked it, and it's still a disgrace. So I can only conclude that you think it's roughly what Singer deserves. Anyhow, here's some news for you: It's Not. It's not your right to allow juvenile, anonymous trolls to trash the lives of great living scientists -- even if you think they're bad people. If I type Fred Singer into Google, I am directed immediately to your site. I see two brief paragraphs about his life, and then it's just environmentalist propaganda all the way to the finish. It's not right. And you ask me for diffs, but I can't for the life of me understand why you would want diffs. How could you possibly think that my experiences can be communicated as a convenient set of diffs for you to review? I am talking about disputes that have lasted weeks, months, and in the Lindzen article case, years, and you ask me for diffs. I can't spoon feed this to you. If you want to understand what one must endure in order to fix this awful problem you have created, you will need to either read the talk pages from beginning to end, or read my publicly archived contribution history. It seems pretty clear to me, though, that you're really not very interested. I'd still like you to prove me wrong though... Alex Harvey ( talk) 11:20, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Hans, if I'm not mistaken, the article started off as "Climategate". [16] There is already a broad consensus to change the article name to something neutral, but the process was derailed after an editor started making false allegations of canvassing. Although that editor has been warned by the admins, [17] the article still hasn't been renamed. A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 13:39, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Jimbo, I'm disappointed to see you expressing opinions supporting a partisan term used to promote fringe or pseudoscientific viewpoints in an area of contrived political controversy over a clear majority scientific view. Please note that while the partisan term "climategate" is common, it is by no means universal and is treated carefully by more reputable sources – for example, Hacked climate science emails | Environment | guardian.co.uk . . dave souza, talk 17:21, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
@ Jimbo, thanks for your thoughtful response. As you suggest, I've had a look at the coverage in the NYT. Although a search shows considerable use of the term in their letters pages and blogs, as with the Guardian, they too have been pretty careful, using it specifically regarding "The e-mail episode, dubbed 'climategate' by critics," [32] or "a recent controversy surrounding e-mails stolen from climate scientists that some have dubbed 'Climategate.'" [33] In other coverage of controversies referring to the e-mails, they've not used the term, [34] [35] [36] and it's noticeably absent from an op-ed, [37] and from an Associated Press story they ran. [38] Less reliable sources have been more indiscriminate, using "climategate" as a catch-all for complaints about mainstream climate science completely unrelated to the e-mail issue. [39] [40] [41] The scandal isn't confined to the behaviour of the scientists, as the Guardian noted in its 12 part investigation, as in Part two: How the 'climategate' scandal is bogus and based on climate sceptics' lies. Underlying issues include the extent to which data, preliminary calculations, and private e-mails should normally be provided for non-scientific criticism – this could mark a shift in the way science is done. [42] The term "climategate" is indeed political language, and we're looking at adding a specific article about the term, but the background and issues raised by this incident go well beyond that particular political aspect of the science. . . dave souza, talk 16:33, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Dear Mr. Wales, the Garth Paltridge article is the only article I was able to get into a stable, approximately sane state, and as it is not attracting internet trolls at the moment I'd say I've done a fair job. Which is not to say I am 100% happy with it. I think it probably should mention that since retirement Paltridge has declared himself a skeptic on CO2 caused climate change -- I think both Paltridge and the reader would be happy with that -- but not mentioning his skepticism at all was a compromise acceptable to both factions. But if you are interested in that article, I suggest you start with its very first revision, rather than the state it is in now, and then read through the talk page. If you read through the talk page, you will most likely be horrified by what you find. Regarding Fred Singer's article, there is a section called "consulting" but no section called "scientific work". Does that mean he was a scientist, or a consultant? After the career section, we find ourselves in the year 2007, then in 1994. Then we get to the 1980s, then to 1997, 2004, 2009, 2008, we stop by at 1991 for a bit of gossip, before we go back to 1960 just for one sentence, then to 1981, then 1994, and finally to 1991 again where the article concludes. Is the problem that Wikipedia's editors have no sense of chronology, or is it that they simply don't like Fred Singer? As the reader, I want to know what happened in the 1960s and 1970s? There are doubtlessly other problems with the article, but I haven't researched Singer's career at the moment so I'll leave you with the self-evident stuff. Finally, I am sorry if I have offended you. I am tired, so I will stop here. Alex Harvey ( talk) 08:13, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Jimbo, I came here to warn you that the climate change BLPs are truly awful things and to remind you that, unfortunately, in any organisation, whether business, government or NGO, accountability rests ulimately with the executive. You seem to opted for a sort of figurehead role here but it is not clear to me that you have actually delegated any responsibility. So it seems to me that you must remain personally accountable for the abuses of this system. (If that is wrong then let me know who I should talk to.) If I seem nasty, or ill-tempered, I still mean you well. I came here to your talk page because there was nowhere else to go. Will you act? If you wish to do something, I am willing to continue to help. I should like to assure you that I have no intention to quote you or misquote you or in any way attack you personally but it does remain clear to me that something has to be done. You need neutral, mature, strong people to step in to fix the climate change pages. Alex Harvey ( talk) 13:09, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
I can't believe I came across this page (for a totally unrelated reason) and found this issue being addressed. It doesn't surprise me that Alex's initial concerns have spilled over to involve many of the other issues surrounding this subject matter. For too long, these articles have been manipulated by a small group of frighteningly coordinated activists with endless patience for subverting the efforts of well-meaning editors, many of whom quickly find their patience in fighting for what's right and good for the encyclopedia simply cannot match that of those fighting to protect an agenda. Those who do risk sinister repercussions.
I only became aware of the struggles with this subject a few months ago. Finding the base global warming article a bit off, I opted to assess it. As with anything I do here (including this post, which took over an hour to write), I was thorough, objective, and meticulous in
my assessment.
I've always considered the time and effort I apply to even the most mundane tasks at wikipedia very valuable and well-spent. And recently, it has bothered me to have to make every effort to ignore the
state of articles relating to global warming. In fact, I do my best to avoid them altogether because, despite having met several editors with similar concerns, I never feel more alone, or that my effort is more wasted, than when I make suggestions for improving them (actually editing them has essentially been rendered unconscionable).
That the encyclopedia has been subversively denied a proper
Climategate article simply breaks my heart every time I think about it. Even if it doesn't mean it will be immediately resolved, seeing Jimbo is now actually aware of it has done wonders for my morale. I have the utmost faith in his objectivity.
What I saw in my research for the aforementioned assessment (and then the response to it), was extremely disheartening. And I guess having borne witness to the organization, duration, and extent of manipulation, I could not muster the wherewithal to oppose it. Like other well-intentioned editors before me, I simply could not find it within me to take up the sword and fight the good fight.
And that makes me sad.
--
K10wnsta (
talk) 21:12, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Just for the record: the english wikipedia had at some time an article about the Roman Warm Period. It's gone. The german wikipedia still has one: Optimum_der_R%C3%B6merzeit How about deleting that as well for consistency? Have fun. 91.34.242.19 ( talk) 00:21, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
I disagree. The absence of an article on Roman Warm Period is unconscionable, particularly in view of its previous existence. If not due to conspiracy, what, I beg you? The link you provide [ [64]] is unavailable except to administrators. Wonder why... What's next - Holocene Climatic Optimum? Medieval Warm Period? Little Ice Age? Oiler99 ( talk) 05:36, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Hi folks, I just stumbled upon this discussion. I'm new to Wikipedia and only just discovered that there even was a "Jimbo Wales" page, and I haven't been involved in any of these climate issues. My two cents is that neither "Climategate" nor the current mouthful of a title is adequate. "Climategate" is the term critics use, and seems to be used by the Times in scare quotes. The "hacking incident" title, I agree, just won't work either. Why not "Global warming email interception"? "Hacking" is prejudicial, and the "-gate" suffice is prejudicial too. Both take sides. ScottyBerg ( talk) 22:05, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Dear Jimbo, although not a member myself, I would cordially like to invite you to a workshop where you can learn all about disrupting and decieving Wikimedia with experiments in practice. This workshop is being organised on a website you may be familiar with, Wikiversity. There is no doubt that you would be welcome to participate. Just leave your name on the page [65] Who knows, they might even design a few barnstars for exceptional graduates. If they plant an operative on the permanent staff they might even be able to pinch the petty kitty. There are many such possibilities for reward so get yourself over there before the list fills up. ~ R. T. G 21:18, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
The Barnstar of Integrity | ||
When the rest sat around for three months talking about a project designed to attack Wikimedia, Jimbo no sooner heard about it and it was gone. ~ R. T. G 02:13, 13 March 2010 (UTC) |
Except that it's back now replete with begging the question in its parameters:
Feel free to make suggestions below - you may even be able to make a point while you're at it! (see no.s 5 and 6 below ;-)
And I have to say that "censorship" is one of the no. 1 red flag terms used by POV-pushers (the other being "suppression") to describe situations where policy overrules their attempts to reflect the world as they would like it to be rather than as it is. Guy ( Help!) 13:26, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
A discussion on the topics raised on this page regarding BLP abuse by activists has been opened here. [66] It is specifically a discussion documenting activity in which two Wiki editors engage in extended off-wiki wars and then edit their opponents BLP's here. 99.142.1.101 ( talk) 23:12, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
The rise of the internet has been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it has generated an almost hermetically-sealed echo chamber, in which science warriors can circulate, adapt and modify the factoids, talking points and bogus quotations that are the stock in trade of opinion pieces like those mentioned above.
On the other hand, for anyone who is aware of the general strategy adopted by the advocates of ‘sound science’, resources like Google and Wikipedia provide immediate confirmation in particular instances. In the past, an opinion piece by, say, Steven Milloy, would appear with an uninformative or misleading byline, and would be given the benefit of the doubt by most readers. Now, anyone who performs a basic check can discover, with little effort, the full history of his efforts as tobacco lobbyist and hired gun for polluting industries.
There is some "featured articles" (and other articles) with missing source refs in many paragraphs of the article. Administrators and ArbCom of Russian Wikipedia believes, that mass source requesting in articles - is "destructive behavior", "harrasment of authors" and "bring to the absurd". They rollbacks source requests (at example, in Russian articles Protein, Sikkim), indefinitely blocks users (for example, ru:User:SkyBon was indefinitely blocked for source requesting in Russian article Sikkim) and protects articles. In this case admins and arbiters refer to the part of rule Wikipedia:Verifiability which is called " Do not make it to absurdity". But it part of rule is absent in the English section of Wikipedia. It is long conflict (I was indefinite blocked in Russian Wikipedia 1 year ago for source requesting in the controversial articles too). In the blog ru_wikipedia we found a lot of mistakes in "featured articles" written by administrators and arbiters (for example, article w:ru:Калан (Sea otter) has more than 100 errors, article Sikkim has more than 50 errors). I think that many errors in Wikipedia caused by lack of sources. What do you think about partly-sourced articles, when many paragraphs did not contain references to the source? Can it have a "featured articles" state? Can be user blocked for source requesting at the end of all non-trivial paragraphs in "featured article"? Thank. X-romix ( talk) 10:22, 14 March 2010 (UTC) P.S. The motive for such activity (mass stamped query on links to "featured" articles written by "party of administrators") is not a private persecution, but an attempt to improve the situation with links and reliability of the information in the Russian Wikipedia. X-romix ( talk) 11:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Additionally, I propose a templates to verify text of the article:
Careful inspection reveals many inconsistencies with sources in articles written by different people. But testing and marking text as unsourced or not presented in source is perceived as a personal attack, adherence to stalinism, lysenkoism etc. by some users and admins. There is need to rule for checking articles and marking all paragraphs of text as "passed checking" (especially in "featured" articles of Wikipedia, where is so many errors, paragraphs with no any sources and inconsistencies with sources by the "ref" tag). X-romix ( talk) 12:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
I am from Texas and I am amazed by the machinations of both sides of the debate over content of the public school textbooks. The problem is not at all that one group or another yearns for their world view to be mirrored in the standards for Texas textbooks (and from there a plurality of state's adopted textbooks)
No. The problem is that the debate centers on bound volumes, printed at great expense that are out of date before they appear on the shelves. The obvious solution is an open source textbook projects.
Is Wiki-world interested in this project? I would appreciate any feedback on this.
Thanks, Kirk Holden <e-mail address redacted> —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rjvg50 ( talk • contribs) 22:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
There seems to be a general impression that the large majority of sources in English-speaking media use the term "Climategate", that a few avoid it, and that many (less than a majority) use it in inverted commas. (The results of my Google News searches confirm this.) In other words: Most media use it as a name, but a significant minority use it as a non-neutral description, clearly marked as such, or not at all.
There is also the earlier precedent of Attorneygate, which, as you will note, is also a redirect. This is explicitly mentioned in WP:TITLE since at least November. WP:TITLE also links to WP:Words to avoid, which has been saying explicitly for more than a year that titles ending in -gate are not admissible unless they refer to historical scandals.
I think that your very clear statement that the article should be titled "Climategate" has not been helpful for finding consensus.
See Talk:Climatic Research Unit hacking incident#A little policy reader and the section followed by it for further information. If you meant to override established, nuanced policies that speak almost specifically about this case even though they predate it, then you should say so very clearly. Hans Adler 00:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
The purpose of this post was to alert Jimbo to a specific exchange at the article talk page that should interest him. [73] [74] (I just noticed that I forgot the links originally.) Sorry for having formulated it in a way that you could understand as an invitation to fork our ongoing discussion. I don't think this would improve its quality. Just do not pretend that I am not responding to your arguments elsewhere. Thank you. (Perhaps I should use email next time.)
This is definitely my last word here unless Jimbo decides to react. Hans Adler 13:30, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Sorry about this. Your talk page has been busy, busy, busy while I was doing this. Cheers!
Re: You wrote, among other things, that you "took a stab at trying to cure the ills of the bogus thing attempting to make it appear that there is no such thing as Climategate." Can you point me to more specifics? I just looked for the article, it is there, and does not seem to deny the existence of this incident at all.
Here is the Wikipedia page, for those who are interested on Climategate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Climategate&redirect=no
It is just a stub that redirects you to a discussion that might as well be about something else.
We do not have an entry proper for Climategate. We have a redirect that points to something different. In fact, it points to something you rightly describe as 'this incident'. Climategate should have its own article and it should take its proper name. Since it is not 'an incident', 'incident' should not be part of the name. I deal with that naming issue and how it relates to (nominal) policy here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DeepNorth/Drafts
Wikipedia's guidelines for naming an article are very clear and the only name that satisfies them is 'Climategate'. The current name is misleading, prejudicial and just plain wrong.
Instead of the umbrella name for a sweeping scandal (tons of items in link above) -- misbehavior and alleged misbehavior spanning decades, we redirect someone searching for 'Climategate' to 'Climatic Research Unit hacking incident' -- as if Climategate is merely about a smallish crime ('incident') directed *against* people at UAE and the thing that is immediately known and important about this is that somebody illegally hacked into the UAE system and that the hacking event was being taken very seriously and being investigated by the police.
Except on 'opposite day' the 'persons of interest' in a crime here are the authors of some of the Emails, not the (IMO whistleblower) person who let them out into the wild. In the real world, what is germane is the content of that FOAI.zip data file and what it may mean for the integrity of Climate Science in particular and now even the governance of mainstream Science in general.
I deal with the Article as I found it at the time in the link below. I attempted to get a balanced view, based on what was actually known, similar to that given at 'Watergate Scandal' by using that page (Watergate) as a template. I used the prior version in these diffs: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Watergate_scandal&action=historysubmit&diff=348617087&oldid=331864938
Here is what I wrote. It was widely referenced prior to being pitched into oblivion here at WP:
I didn't sign it (my bad), but at the time I really was just an uninvolved editor. There are about 50 web pages properly referencing my modest comment, even though it was quickly disappeared from the discussion.
There are about 70 pages properly referencing the title of the article replacing Climategate even though it has been Ranked number one in a Google search for months.
There are anywhere from 1 to 50 million pages properly referencing 'Climategate' (as such, by name) depending upon how you look at it.
The current article title is about as wrong as an article title could be and still have some relation to its subject matter. It goes down from there. The opening paragraph is misleading to the point of being an effective falsehood. Climategate is not 'about' a hacking incident. This article is, but it has no business pretending to stand in for the real thing.
UEA itself is not notable enough for a security breach (if it even was one) to merit an article.
I took a look just prior to saving this and the article does not look much better 'spin-wise' than usual. It looks like it was written by an AGW apologist who had no choice but to address things gone too far public, but everything gets a spin and at the end, they refer you to only two pages:
See also:
* Global warming conspiracy theory * Global warming controversy
I am not, by any stretch of the imagination the only person who has complained that Climategate and the rest of the climate articles have been manipulated. If you follow the links through all of this you will find links to various skeptics and in their article they seem to be only all about 'denialism'. If you are skeptical and vocal, you can expect your biography to be a hatchet job. If you have a high profile like Richard Lindzen they will take care, but you are still not likely to get fair treatment. If you are pro AGW, you can expect to get spun nicely. Phil Jones is, essentially, the bad guy in the Climategate Emails. He is the one who was cheered at the news of a colleagues death. He was the one that said he would 'hide behind that' and 'destroy data' rater than release it and redefine the peer reviewed literature. He is the one who said the infamous 'hide the decline', which although it does not mean what people think it does is still not good. Phil Jone's entry looks like an apologia written by his publicist. It includes the howler about the prima facie evidence by UEA shill-meisters and the entry trails off with a list of four of his publications.
The main part of the article on Lindzen ends thus:
"Lindzen clearly relishes the role of naysayer. He'll even expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking. He speaks in full, impeccably logical paragraphs, and he punctuates his measured cadences with thoughtful drags on a cigarette"
They don't list any publications of Lindzen's, though they do link to a list of his many hundreds of publications.
The 'push' of the POV is crafty and can be subtle, but it is there in spades and the poster-child for this mangling of Wikipedia is the pre-emption of the article on Climategate.
I am recusing myself for now. This is so vexatious! Thank you very much for your attention. I am happy that you listened and though I would be delighted if you could fix this I am not expecting you to and I do not believe you have any obligation to do so.
Great job fostering and watching over WP, which is still a thing of wonderment, warts and all! DeepNorth ( talk) 21:06, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Re: "There are genuine issues of how scientists should respond to vexatious misuse of FOI requests ... coming from people with no intention of working on the science of the subject ... These issues are being examined in several enquiries (sic), but in the interim simply repeating misinformation is irresponsible and inappropriate in Wikipedia."
OMG. I hardly know what to say about the above. It is as if I am shilling for myself ... It should be easy enough to find the link. McKitrick's (sp?) submission to one of them shows clearly (from the record that is already public) that Phil Jones' resolve to withhold data *precedes* the two or three (!) requests that came his way from Mckintyre (sp?) and company. I would say that M&M deserve significant credit for doing some of the best work on climate data thus far. Again, as I say, pretty much everything I say is already part of the public record. It ain't goin' nowhere. DeepNorth ( talk) 21:11, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree that I have been prickly. I don't think I started out that way. I surely did not come here because some part of the blogosphere suggested I do so. I was here long before even my screen name was registered. Whatever I have done here (on WP generally) has largely been anonymous. The only reason I registered the screen name was to put up stuff on programming. the only reason that there are no articles in evidence is because some well meaning but over-zealous editor kept deleting my graphics (created and owned by me) and exhausted my time before I could get the articles up. On sober second thought, when I had the time again, I was unsure (still am) if this would be more 'original research' and so elected to publish elsewhere. That's about it for my original presence here (which goes back a lot longer than my screen name). Climategate was in the news and a Google search brings the WP page (such as it is) up as the top ranked hit on a search. I came here and was appalled at what I found. I still am. It is shocking. My initial impression was maybe you had a point and I went looking. The more I looked the more gruesome it looked. The while AGW thing was a scandal long before Climategate hit. I will absolutely own being a 'skeptic'. There is nothing at all wrong with skepticism. It is healthy. It is just about mandatory when doing research. My stuff especially (not climate -- data stuff). To be honest, though, having done a little research into Climate many years ago at school, I never thought the AGW POV had enough merit even to argue about. I had no idea it had gained such traction. I still, I swear, have no idea what the chain of evidence is supposed to be that links CO2 to Global Warming (causally, of any net additional significance) or Global Warming to catastrophe or catastrophe to something we can mitigate at a cost that is less than adapting. All of the 'pro AGW' camp seems to be able to present is arguments that cast naysayers in a negative light, previously debunked evidence, non-sequitors like experiments with CO2 in the lab (this goes back forever, before I was in University, nobody has argued with that experiment, it just isn't relevant), etc. I think it was McKitrick (sp?) who said somewhere that he found that every single argument or set of data that was presented by the pro AGW crowd, when peeled back layer by layer either ended up with nothing or something demonstrably false. That has been my experience. None of the people on this page or elsewhere has presented evidence of anything that supports AGW or demonstrates bad faith on the part of people like me. There is an 'opportunity cost' for taking premature action on the unproven chain mentioned above. A part of that cost will cause people in the third world to have to bury their children. That is neither a metaphor nor is it hyperbole. They are burying them now and more will perish as we allocate resources to managing the brokering of carbon credits that could have been spent on clean water, medicine, education and industrialization in the third world. I am a dad and I truly feel for those people. If we must, to save the many, sacrifice the few, then so be it. It would be a bitter pill, but I can face up to it. What I can't abide is the notion that carnage and tragedy will result from knee-jerk public policy actions based on very shaky evidence.
Though prickly, I don't think I have targeted anybody's person. I have disagreed with some of their utterances and actions. In the case of suppressing Climategate and the endless juvenile sophistry that passes for arguments in favor of AGW alarmism, I find it hard to bite my tongue. Believe me, I think that whether this is a road to hell paved with good intentions or not, it is still a road to hell. It is easy to step off of this road and strike a better course and I dearly wish the community at WP would do so.
I do, actually, assume good faith on the part of some (maybe most or all, who knows?) of the pro AGW people. I confess that part of my apathy to the AGW nonsense was a naive notion that the ends justified the means. That is, I have never thought there was a scrap of evidence that CO2 was anything but net beneficial, but since it mobilized people to clean up otherwise (because even though CO2 is not a pollutant, plenty of other things clearly are), I looked the other way. What, I thought, is the harm in it? Who cares if they do the right thing for the wrong reasons? Sadly, it is with that line of thinking that I joined you on the road to hell.
Perhaps like you, I feel a duty to speak up because the issue is important. I think this is, broadly, an important issue outside of WP. However, it is inside that concerns me here. Regardless of who is good, who is bad, who is right and who is wrong, the net effect of the warring is detrimental to WP, and as I mentioned before the most egregious example of this is the ridiculous situation where there is, effectively, no real article on Climategate. It should make Wikipedians blush. DeepNorth ( talk) 04:28, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Oh yeah -- likely tl;dr, but that may be what is wrong with this whole thing. Maybe if people had more tenacity for reading and cogitating on things there would not be so much disagreement here.
Since you are discussing the article name, on 17 February, 2010, there was an attempt to have "hacking" removed from the title Climatic Research Unit hacking incident. 27 people supported the change and 8 opposed it. Therefore, the name change failed. Normally, I would have thought that 77% would have been considered a pass. This is one of the reasons that some people claim that there is a cabal. BTW, there is still heated discussion of the term "hacked". Q Science ( talk) 09:52, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
The Climategate fiasco on WP has overflowed to JW's talk page. JW expressed puzzlement at the strange title masking Climategate and even the opinion (with which many concur) that it should be called Climategate as per WP policy. People came out of the woodwork to express their displeasure with things. They provided diffs of edits to show how the climate articles have been injured. Clearly, there is more than a little controvery here. So ... somebody figured it was time to remove the tag saying the neutrality of the fake Climategate page is in dispute. As far as anyone looking for Climategate on WP is concerned, it is *not* called Climategate. It is called the Climatic Research Unit hacking incident. Apparently, it involves primarily a department at school, was a confirmed hacking and was merely an 'incident' at a moment in time. That is apparently what is fair and germane to say about the thing the rest of the world calls Climategate. Hence, here at WP, we present the article as if it has all been agreed upon and there is no effective dissent with respect to that point of view. I dissent and I think that both the title and the article itself are grotesque stains upon the reputation of Wikipedia as a reasonable source of information.
The above removes the tag from (what should be Climategate) that says the neutrality is in dispute. The person who did this added the following summary: "(Rm POV tag. There is no more neutral title than this and I don't see any disputed material.)"
It should be noted that the neutrality of that title *and* the content of that article is not only in dispute, it is POV by any definition on its face. The tag should never have been removed. This is the second time I have noticed this happen to this article. There are plenty of people with a less than neutral point of view who are watching this article constantly. I wonder how long it will take for the POV tag to go back up and who will do it. DeepNorth ( talk) 14:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)